AHC: California divided, Oregon territory a single state.
- Thread starter M.R.L
- Start date
I believe there was an idea floating around to have California split up due to it's over population (especially with it having nearly more electoral college votes then all the mid west states put together) into nearly seven different states.
But how much is "most of" Oregon Territory? Because as the map bellows shows, it would cover 5 OTL states, so maybe an Washington and Oregon state could be done, with a bit of Idaho?
I believe there was an idea floating around to have California split up due to it's over population (especially with it having nearly more electoral college votes then all the mid west states put together) into nearly seven different states.
But how much is "most of" Oregon Territory? Because as the map bellows shows, it would cover 5 OTL states, so maybe an Washington and Oregon state could be done, with a bit of Idaho?
Ideally the whole territory. Said state does not necessarily have to be called Oregon ("Cascadia" and "Columbia" come to mind.) My main question is whether Oregon territory could've ended up as one large state like Texas and California did.
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The whole territory may be difficult, but if remember most states that started off big, were cut down eg. Louisiana Territory.
Texas was cut down in size.
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What about in 21st June [1] 1810, John Jacob Astor, (born Johann Jakob Astor, a German-born American businessman, merchant, fur trader, and investor) sets up Washington Fur Company [2], also known as the Astor Expedition, which competed with the Canadian-owned North West Company (NWC) in the Oregon Country of the Pacific Northwest.What started off as a simple large wheeled wagon route back and forth, turned into a mass migration to the new settlement of Georgetown, [3] where John J. Astor, as owner of the company and mayor of the town worked long hours to build his company up.
In 1811, Astor invested in a boat building firm to trade the fur and woods to Asia, the owner of the shipping business was so pleased with the investment that when he built a new harbour on the Pacific coast, the first for the United States, he automatically named the harbouring town, Astoria, which was also the name of the first ship built.
In 1812, the company took a hit during the war of 1812, but as the company was further away from major cities, it was able to keep steady.
Long story short think this is like OTL Hudson bay
[1] 2 days before he would in OTL, after talking with Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, Albert spoke of a deal that if he set up the company and was able to make profit then, the treasury will help them compete with the British Empire.
[2] Was called Pacific Fur Company in OTL but with the offer of a deal, he chose to try and butter up the countries capital and first president who only died 10 years earlier.
[] In OTL this is still the same name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria,_Oregon
That is a relatively recent idea. For its first century in the Union, California wasn't particularly populous. As late as the 1960 census, New York was still slightly ahead of it in population. California underwent some explosive population growth in the second half of the 20th century, but by that time, the state's identity had been clearly developed and the notion of splitting it up seemed unthinkable to most people.
Don't forget that growth is almost completely dependent on the 1960 California State Water Project diverting immense amounts of water from the northern rivers to Southern California. That would be all but unthinkable if they were two separate states. Splitting up California along a north-south axis would kill off the growth of Southern California before it started.
My response will be in two parts.
Firstly, regarding Oregon, I honestly don't know about *all* of the Territory being consolidated into a single state, but it may be possible, to include not only the real world's Washington & Oregon, but even a few adjacent parts of southwestern, and even northern, Idaho as well.
And as to what happens to California, that may well depend on whether or not we keep as much territory from Mexico as in our world, or even more of it; if we get Baja, too, it'd be much easier to split it into two states, maybe around the 35th parallel, or thereabouts(Crayhistory did that in a TL he wrote, but I forget what the southern state was called at the moment). Without it, it'd most likely be split about halfway between the 36th and 37th parallels: Nevada and Pacifica seem like a couple of decent state names to me, IMHO.
In the beginning, people talked about splitting up the California Territory because they thought it covered too large of an area. The plan was to have Nevada as OTL, and the northern rectangle of of what we call California was going to be called Shasta, the southern bit around Los Angeles would be called Colorado, and what's left would be called California. My impression was that Congress had voted on this, but maybe the idea didn't make it that far. I suspect that had this gone through, it would be easier for the people of those states to govern themselves democratically.
Evan, do you know if there were similar water projects before 1960? Los Angeles was a major city long before 1960. In 1960 it had 2 and a half million people in it already, which is enough people to be a state in its own right. I imagine that cutting up California could stop the southern part from having 20 million people, but I don't think it stops any of its parts from being populated enough to be functioning states.
Evan, do you know if there were similar water projects before 1960? Los Angeles was a major city long before 1960. In 1960 it had 2 and a half million people in it already, which is enough people to be a state in its own right. I imagine that cutting up California could stop the southern part from having 20 million people, but I don't think it stops any of its parts from being populated enough to be functioning states.
SinghKing
Banned
Look up the LA Aqueduct. By 1900, the population of LA had grown to more than 102,000, which was enough to start exerting a huge strain on the city's water supply. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913 facilitated the continued growth of the city. Without it, Los Angeles wouldn't have had enough water to support a population any larger than 150K, 200K at most. On the other hand, the Owens River Valley (present-day Inyo County) would have been a lot more fertile, and this region could have potentially supported a population that large (as much as that of OTL's Los Angeles in 1960) instead of LA.
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California can not be split at the time of admission because that would further increase the new impbalance between slave and free states in the Senate. UNLESS - the Omnibus compromise of 1850 was expanded to include provision for a division of CA into 2 states with the understanding that the Southern State would be a "Slave" state. It is also questionable if Southern California had the population necessary for statehood but then that did not stop Nevada in 1864. As for Oregon, its population was almost entirely concentrated in the Willamette valley as an agricultural Yankee community and admitting it as is in 1858 made sense. Adding in additional sparsely populated and geographically distant areas within the historical borders of Oregon would have made little sense. Remember that WA and ID did not become states until 1889 and at that time they very distinct in that WA was of course centered on the Sound while Idaho was a mining frontier with a small agricutral community in the South (with a Mormon influence).
Could a gold rush have occurred in the Oregon region, thus filling it up and creating incentive to give it statehood like OTL California? Also I think Texas sets a bit of a precedent in terms of large sparsely populated areas going into one state, so the notion isn't unheard of.
Yea but part of Texas is not separated by a very large mountain range from the rest of the state. This would make it hard to administer from the likely population centers along the coast.
Yea but that was across relatively flat land that could be concievably crossed on horseback or on a railroad that didn't involve drilling tunnels through mountains or finding those few easier to cross passes.
Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
But how much is "most of" Oregon Territory? Because as the map bellows shows, it would cover 5 OTL states, so maybe an Washington and Oregon state could be done, with a bit of Idaho?
If the British got their way in the late 1840s, it is possible to get a smaller Oregon Territory, without most of Washington and Northern Idaho.
SinghKing
Banned
Alternately, could it be possible for a 'Republic of Cascadia' to secede at this time, and to be willingly annexed by the USA in the same manner as the Republic of California and Republic of Texas were IOTL?