When exactly was California the place to be ? The 1800's? I have always remembered California as being a place to stay away from....Maybe when Reagan was governor back in the 1960's but even then they had race riots and were burning the cities down...
You hit it.
I don't have recollections from the 1800's but I do remember California in the 1950's and 1960's.
Kid's played in the streets unsupervised.
There were many opportunities for employment with agriculture, great weather, abundant beaches, ports, minerals/oil, etc.
Alcatraz was a deterrent--not a tourist attraction.
We were tops in educations with only UC Berkeley being exceptional in its open political radicalization.
In the mid 1960's, I remember seeking out the LA Times because it was a conservative news source.
Things really started downhill when Beatniks evolved into Hippies and Kennedy/Johnson dragged us into Vietnam.