1866
- Pacific Rolling Mill Company, the West’s first iron and steel producing foundry (rolling mill of the period pictured), is established in San Francisco
- Frederick Billings of the College of California, while walking with fellow collegians through land purchased in 1860 for the new location of the college, stops at a spot (pictured) in the Contra Costa Range astride Strawberry Creek, with a view of the Bay Area and the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate. While watching two ships standing out to sea, he remembers a line by Anglican Bishop George Berkeley, "westward the course of empire takes its way", and suggests Berkeley's name for the college and the town to grow around it.