Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Story of Los Angeles and Southern California The gate of this opportunity is swinging wide on the hinges of a prosperity and progress unmatched in history, where have risen as if by magic the most beautiful cities, the most prosperous rural and urban population and the highest civilization in America. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.