I never knew anything about this history. My great-grandfather moved from San Luis Potosi to Houston in the 1920s, and when that ended up not working out well, he taught himself stonemasonry and moved to California and built a house on land in the middle of absolute nowhere, which eventually became California City. I used to visit up there for a week every summer around Independence Day back in the 80s. Most of the family did not stay up there and ended up settling in and around East LA.
Interesting to think if this stupid idea had panned out. Would my family be wealthy land barons today just by virtue of settling in a place that boomed before it boomed? How many cities in the American west today are dominated by families that got lucky their desperate immigrant ancestor who had to settle in the frontier because they couldn't get work anywhere else happened to pick the right place a century before anyone could have known it was the right place?
Interesting to think if this stupid idea had panned out. Would my family be wealthy land barons today just by virtue of settling in a place that boomed before it boomed? How many cities in the American west today are dominated by families that got lucky their desperate immigrant ancestor who had to settle in the frontier because they couldn't get work anywhere else happened to pick the right place a century before anyone could have known it was the right place?