| 1906 | The San Francisco earthquake and fire. General Frederick Funston orders Presidio troops to help with relief activities and deter looting after the Great Earthquake and Fire. Though Funston acts without authorization, he is lauded for his decisive intervention. First fossils discovered in the La Brea tarpits. First motion picture studio in Los Angeles. The San Francisco Examiner buys Russian Fort Ross and presents it to the state. First Los Angeles to Honolulu transpacific yacht race. |
| 1907 | Lincoln-Roosevelt League. Reformers within the Republican Party form this organization pledged to end Southern Pacific dominance in California politics. The League seeks to promote convention delegates pledged to Roosevelt's reforms. It also presses for popularly elected U.S. Senators and for political primaries for all state and local offices. Boss Abe Ruef flees the graft prosecution. He is tracked to Trocadero House in Stern Grove, arrested, and imprisoned in a hotel to face justice. The San Francisco School Board rescinds its decision to segregate Japanese students after the Japanese government puts pressure on President Theodore Roosevelt to respect U.S. treaty obligations. California State Automobile Association founded. Alcatraz is officially designated as a military prison. Imperial County formed. |
| 1908 | Cleveland National Forest created. Muir Woods and Pinnacles National Monuments created. A bomb explodes in the home of Supervisor James L. Gallagher, a key witness against Abraham Ruef. The conspiracy is traced to Felix Panduvaris who hired Peter and John Claudiannes to bomb Gallagher's homes. Panduvaris flees the country. Graft prosecutor Francis J. Heney is shot in court by Morris Haas. Heney publically embarassed Haas some months before by revealing Haas's criminal past during jury selection. Heney survives, but Hiram Johnson must continue the prosecution. Death of last authenticated California Grizzly, near Holy Jim Falls, Orange County. Abe Ruef is sentenced to jail. |
| 1909 | Congress provides for the forfeiture of abandoned railroad right of way. (February 25) Foundation of Allensworth, an African American utopian community in the Central Valley near Fresno. Establishment of Southern California Edison. Glenn Martin begins production of mail planes at a Santa Ana factory. University of Redlands founded. Federal Telegraph Corporation founded. Farallon bird sanctuary established. |
| 1910 | First junior college established at Fresno. Los Angeles Times Bombing. Twenty one people are killed when a bomb destroys the anti-union Los Angeles Times building. William J. Burns tracks the bomb to brothers J.J. and J.D. McNamara, officers of an Indianapolis structural iron workers organization. Progressive Hiram Johnson elected governor. |
| 1911 | The Bear Flag becomes the official state flag. Clarence Darrow is accused of bribing jurors in the McNamara case. The McNamaras change their plea to guilty. J.J. receives fifteen years and J.B. receives a life sentence. California adopts initiative, referendum, and recall. Devil's Postpile National Monument established. Ishi, "the Last Wild Indian in California", comes out of hiding at Oroville. Anthropologist Charles Waterman hears of the Yahi man's surprise appearance and brings him to the University of California at San Francisco's Anthropology Museum, where he will spend the rest of his life, protected by museum director Alfred Kroeber. Death of Monarch, last full-blooded California Grizzly. Allan Loughhead (later Lockheed) begins manufacturing seaplanes in Santa Barbara. Beaver trapping outlawed by the State Legislature. J. Stite Wilson, a Socialist, is elected mayor of Berkeley. Fellow party member Job Harriman nearly repeats the feat in Los Angeles. |
| 1912 | James A. Johnston becomes warden of Folsom Prison and abolishes corporal punishment. First Cross-City Race in San Francisco. It will later become known as the Bay to Breakers. |
| 1913 | Sutro Library given to the state. Wheatland Riot. James A. Johnston is made Warden of San Quentin Prison and begins implementing the classification system, whereby hardened criminals are separated from lesser offenders. He makes other improvements including better food for inmates and a part time dentist. Alien Land Law. The Legislature prohibits ownership of real estate by persons ineligible for citizenship or by their corporations except where provided by international treaty. The measure is primarilly directed at Japanese. The Legislature moves to protect the sea otter. It appears as if the move is too late to save the otter which is believed to become extinct in California waters for many years. Richard Nixon born in Yorba Linda, California. |
| 1914 | Southwest Museum opens. Mount Lassen erupts. California Voters approve the Red Light Abatement Act. This marks the end of the Barbary Coast and other prostitution districts in the state. |
| 1915 | Panama-Pacific Exposition (in San Francisco) and Panama-California Exposition (in San Diego). San Francisco demonstrates to the world that it has recovered from the 1906 earthquake. Allan Lockheed gets the passenger-plane concession for the San Francisco fair, giving many people their first experience of flying. First transcontinental telephone call, San Francisco to New York. |
| 1916 | Lassen Volcanic National Park created. Ishi dies of tuberculosis. Preparedness Day Bombing. Ten people are killed during a parade put on by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Tom Billings and "Gentle Dynamiter" Warren Mooney are falsely accused and convicted of the crime. Mooney is sentenced to death and Billings to life. California Packing Corporation created by Mark J. Fontana. |
| 1917 | The State Supreme Court finds the Red Light Abatement Act to be constitutional. San Francisco Conservatory of Music founded. Forest Lawn Memorial Park established. Magnavox Corporation is founded in Oakland to manufacture loudspeakers. |
| 1918 | Save-the-Redwoods League founded. President Woodrow Wilson intervenes on behalf of Warren Mooney. Following the failure of Mooney's appeals to the California and United States Supreme Courts, the governor of California commutes Mooney's death sentence to life imprisonment. Deaths of Hubert Howe Bancroft and Horace Bell. |
| 1919 | California Farm Bureau Federation formed. Criminal Syndicalism Act. The State Legislature outlaws "any doctrine or precept advocating....unlawful acts of violence...as a means of accomplishing a change in industrial ownership or control, or effecting any political change." This blatant attack on freedom of speech is found to be unconstitutional nearly fifty years later. Hoover Institution founded. William Randolph Hearst begins construction of San Simeon. Robert Marshall conceives the Central Valley Project. |
| 1920 | Donald Douglas starts Douglas Aircraft in Los Angeles. Throop Institute becomes the California Institute of Technology. Californians vote to extend the Alien Land Law. |
| 1921 | Signal Hill oil boom begins. Immigrant Simon Rodia begins piecing together bits of junk and cement to form the Watts Towers. Indians and Negroes are no longer required to attend segregated schools. Chinese and Japanese children are. Henry J. Kaiser comes to California. |
| 1922 | Congress provides that abandoned railroad right of ways will revert to the owners of the land crossed. (March 8) Hollywood Bowl opens. The Geysers, the first commercial geothermal plant in the United States, begins operation. Fresno Bee begins publication. |
| 1923 | Labor strike at San Pedro. Completion of the Hetch Hetchy and San Francisco Water Project. Fire destroys much of Berkeley's residential district. Teapot Dome in California. Edward Doheny arranges to drill on 32,000 acres of Government Land at Elk Hills Petroleum Reserve without the nuisance of competitive bidding. The revelation of his $100,000 "loan" to Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall results in the prosecution of both men: Fall is convicted of receiving a bribe and Doheny is acquitted. San Francisco Opera Association founded. President Harding dies while visiting San Francisco. Wild rumors following his death suggest that he has been poisoned or shot because of the Teapot Dome scandal. Walt Disney arrives in Los Angeles. |
| 1924 | The Spreckels Family founds the California Palace of the Legion of Honor as an rival to the City's DeYoung Museum, founded by a longtime enemy. Two Douglas aircraft make the worlds first around the world flight. First Miss California crowned. First airmail sent from San Francisco to New York. Asian emigration to the United States is terminated. Foundation of the Avocado Marketing Exchange. |
| 1925 | KPO San Francisco broadcasts the first still television picture. Car Culture. Los Angeles boasts one automobile for every three persons. In San Luis Obispo, an innkeeper develops a car friendly hostel and calls it a "motel". Lava Beds National Monument established. Santa Barbara earthquake. First East-West Bowl game. Claremont Graduate School founded. |
| 1926 | Scripps College founded. Mission Santa Clara burns down. Jesuits construct a replica on the grounds of the University of Santa Clara. San Diego-based Ryan Aircraft builds The Spirit of Saint Louis for Charles Lindbergh. My Own Story by Fremont Older. |
| 1927 | Philo T. Farnsworth experiments with television transmission in San Francisco. He is assisted in his efforts by Russell Varian, inventor of the klystron tube. First Los Angeles Open Golf Tournament. Dumbarton Bridge opened. It is the first bridge to cross San Francisco Bay, spanning the estuary between Menlo Park and Newark. |
| 1928 | St. Francis Dam Collapse. Oil discovered in the Kettleman Hills. Air passenger flights between San Francisco and Los Angeles inaugurated. Herbert Hoover elected President of the United States, the first California resident accorded the honor John Northrop leaves Lockheed to start Avion Corporation (later, 1932, Northrop Corporation). Congress passes the California Indians Jurisdictional Act authorizing the attorney general of California to sue the Federal Government on behalf of its native Americans. Cartoon, Steamboat Willie, by Walt Disney introduces Mickey Mouse. |
| 1929 | California Maritime Academy founded. First Oscars awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Organization of Highway Patrol. Invention of the cyclotron, a nuclear particle accelerator, by E.O. Lawrence of Berkeley. U.S. Stock Market crash. (November) |