that liberals and conservatives have fought over the question of immigration and shaped each other's strategies and brought us to the present day. that is what i would like to do next. >> we look forward to that research. benjamin francis fallon, thank at western carolina university. >> thank you so much. ask watch the american history -- american story unfold. 10thng back at nato's anniversary. rocket girls, the women of the jet ocean laboratory. c-span three. darnell storesn this -- shares the story of -- who played an integral role of

san luis obispo. >> i get the sense he was a force to be reckoned with. he was a prominent rancher in 1894. he was successful bringing the railroad to san luis obispo. i believe that was his major contribution. back in 1993, i was new to the community by one year. realize theouse and need to distance. this house is on the national register of historic places for the contributions he made. we didn't know anything about the beginning of his life. his family other than his father was a sea captain. we knew he was from maine. we did not know where he was in the family. my research and his letters

brought all of that to life. what made me decide to publish all of his letters was the letter dated april 19, 1865. he is writing his parents, they had just received the news of president lincoln's assassination. we have just received the news. san francisco is one mass of excite. the mob just cleaned the papers out very likely. everything belonging to their offices, pitched into the streets. it is believed it will change the policy of the war. not much more mercy will be shown the rebels. business is suspended. every building is draped in deep mourning. placeneral is to take thursday in the afternoon.

we have received the news of the surrender of the entire army to sherman. the people seem to be pleased to receive the news, but it has not taken away the sorrow nor created anything like the seen,iasm which has been had it not been for this calamity. it will take place tomorrow. the same as in the east. the letters go through his schooling, his working as an intern. which is father arranged to nonpaid, like young people do today. to moving from place to place, finding your niche, which is what he did. focused. very in a sentence and one of his

letters, he said, he could stand anything but being dole. he decided to come to california. he had a friend that had visited him. george convinced 10 resident employee -- him as an employee, very profitable. he decided that is what he would do. he rationalized wool would never go out of style. he would always have something. it was 1864. california was major out. no business to be had. to drive sheep into the sierra nevada. decided he could not do anything

else. he went back to san francisco to stay with a cousin. to be a clerk. office manager, different jobs. between san francisco and sacramento. he had met his niece. who became his wife. raised in san luis obispo. this was the city. recognized as a comment rancher, but san luis obispo .fforded him to go into banking it was his profession. he recognized the community needs to grow. he bought land. he developed the land. he is working

toward having some sort of transportation other than the in.mships coming there needed to be rail. he was asked by the community to be the spokesperson for the county. he was the representative there. they went head-to-head with big four., of the of the southern pacific. they had to be convinced of a good reason to come. huntington was the opposition. huntington understanding the financial straits southern

theyic was in at the time, were accustomed to laying track on flat ground. they did not want the expense of , which isrough rock what was going to have to happen. do seven tunnels. i think in the 1950's, they had to make them larger for the trains getting larger. they struck a deal property owners who owned in the land in the county had to give them the right of way to build. they needed to have property to do their stop switch today we

would call a depot. they needed land to do their auxiliary buildings where they would store stuff. they had to do all of that. to raise money, he came up with plandea of a subscription everyoneommunity so could feel as though they contributed. of one subscription was one dollar. even forhat would he the least of the community, they could manage that. i am sure many bought more than that. andought that was very wise community building. when you have everybody putting a stake into something, they are much more likely to approve. soon afterwards, we had a library. it grew. a place to work,

play,, and to live. today, san luis obispo has that slogan. to live, work, and play. originally, that idea came with the railroad coming. >> this weekend, american history tv is joining our partners to showcase the history san luis obispo, california. to see more video from the city and others, visit c-span.org. we continue with our look at the history of san luis obispo. >> i am a designer. a -- i do a lot of things that have components. at one of the things that led me

to be interested in historical buildings, doing the research i needed. the earliest one was 1979. it took a little research. i started collecting photographs. that is what led to my collection. it is random and not terribly organized. it has become very useful. it relates project pie project to the work i have done. ae image on the screen shows view of san luis obispo, across town by the railroad. one of the things you see, a lot of open fields. small houses. here is today. the landscape is about the same. we have created an urban forest.

there are hardly any trees here. you would see eucalyptus trees on the mountainside. it has changed the mass of the hill. done, there is an aerial view. 1905, i believe it was. me where certain buildings were. sometimes you will see a photograph. this can be a reference of where things used to be. you have a picture of the building across the street. it has been covered with stucco. this is how it looked when it was originally built. there was an addition. that upper stuff

was taken off. 1905, 1906. this looks a lot different. it had a floor added to it back in the 1920's. this window here is that window there. this street has changed quite a bit. telephone poles, none of that. here's another picture in the 1920's. ande able to look at this then reality and say, what is good about this we can do. a building about a block away. like a 1960's intrigue. this is a photograph i found on a wall in a coffee shop. brick.

christmas, probably turn-of-the-century. santa is handing out candy bars. all the plaster off the building. we found the opening was there. at the end, we started putting this back on. all the original detailing has been reconstructed. this is high density foam. here it is finished. essentially what it looked like at the time. that has happened to a handful of buildings around downtown. it creates a warm in the downtown. it is a nice way to bring back the charm downtown had at one time. >> san luis obispo, california is one of the cities we have two word. c-span.org.e, go to

you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend. >> this week on q&a, douglas frank talks about his book american moonshine. >> he goes back to fdr, thinking the new deal is too big. beyond did well was social security and things, building the grand coulee dam. eisenhower had the highway system. he picked theis right number, technology. the computer chip gets developed 1950's. modern aviation starts kick in and.

when he runs the 1960's, there are no computer science classes. travel is replacing automobile and train travel in many ways, people are flying more and more, airports being developed across the country, so it is the jet age, the space age. kennedy grabbed onto it and made a day cornerstone of the new frontier. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q and day. 1940 years ago, april 4, nine, the north atlantic treaty was founded -- was signed in washington by the 12 founding members of what came to be known nato. a decadereel america," of nato, hosted by edward r.