CHAPTER II
BEAR VALLEY

In mid-October 1863, Olmsted traveled from San Francisco to the Mariposa Estate and spent five weeks assessing the condition of the Estate. He also pondered whether he could create a civilized community there for his family and friends, and began to appreciate the California landscape, despite the severe drought in the state at the time.

In a letter to his wife dated October 14, Olmsted describes his trip from Stockton to Bear Valley. He characterizes the land as a virtual desert, “a dead flat, dead brown prairie.” In all of the letters during this period to his family and friends, Olmsted emphasizes the dry, dusty barrenness and desolation of the land surrounding Bear Valley. In his letter of October 15, he tells his wife to prepare for a hard life in California. After some weeks in Bear Valley, however, Olmsted’s view of the valley scenery softens. He compares it to areas in Italy, Scotland, and England which he has visited and begins to appreciate the different aspects of the California landscape. In his letter of November 21 to Frederick N. Knapp, he states that “the dry, dusty winter of summer which I found, terrified me . . . but there is ruggedness & picturesqueness in some hills—a bold simplicity in others, and the gradations of surface in the valleys are very agreeable.”

During this time, Olmsted came to realize the ruinous condition of the Mariposa Estate. His inspection of the mines and mills revealed the devastating effects of his predecessor Trenor Park’s policies and the fact that not one of the mills was making a profit. In letters to his father and to Morris Ketchum, treasurer and chief stockholder of the Mariposa Company, Olmsted details the finances and operations of the Estate and [97]considers whether Trenor Park had swindled the Mariposa Company or had simply been a very lucky salesman. He proposes to test whether the Estate could be made to pay again by reducing its expenses and developing its resources.

Olmsted’s letters of October and November 1863 give his first impressions of the population of the Mariposa Estate. He would expand on these in his essay “The Pioneer Condition and the Drift of Civilization in America.” Besides the extravagant and rootless white miners, Olmsted also notes the Miwok Indians (known to him and his contemporaries as “Diggers”), and the two hundred Chinese at work upon the Estate.

In his letter of October 15 to his wife, Olmsted writes, “The natural death of the country is cold lead in the brain.” He describes the lack of civilizing influences in Bear Valley and the abundance of frontier violence and gambling. Olmsted begins to plan a new community where he hopes to build a house for his family and encourage his friends to settle. His letters to his wife dated October 15 and October 31 outline his concept of an appropriate rural architecture for California, and express his desire to develop a healthy center around which civilization might crystallize on the Estate.