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AN OLD-TIME WESTERN TURFMAN. Incidents in Career of G. M. Van Gordon Raced Horses at Oakland in 1866. G. M. Van Gorden, one of the oldest and most widely known turfmen in the west, has his string of thoroughbreds racing at the Tijuana track. Mr. Van Gorden is one of the most picturesque and interesting men to be found in the west, and is one of the real pioneers of California and Alaska. His experience in the far west from the time he crossed the plains to California, two years before the discovery of gold iu that state in 1S49, up to the time he came out of Alaska following the first rush to the newly discovered gold fields in that territory, are varied and full of human interest. Mr. Van Gorden is a native of Detroit, and when he was 5 years of age his father, Ira Van Gorden, and maternal grandfather, George Harlan, organized a party that numbered seventy-five to make the trip to California. The party, including the Van Gorden youngster, left Detroit iu October, 1S45, and journeyed to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Almost a year after leaving Detroit, the party arrived on the shores of San Francisco Bay without having suffered a single fatality en route. At that time San Francisco, which was then called Verba Buena, had a population of about 400, chiefly Mexicans, while the present city of Oakland, just across the bay, was known as Encinal. Mr. Van Gorden distinctly remembers the excitement caused by the news of the discovery of gold by John Marshall and Peter Whinner. At the time the Van Gorden family was located at Redwood Canyon, situated about eighty miles to the west of Colima, where the first gold was discovered. The Van Gordens, upon hearing the news lost 110 time in setting out for the new El-Dorado, and, arriving at the village of Martinez, found that no less than S00 people were there, bound for the gold mines. Later on the Van Gordens moved to Tulare County and thence to San Louis, Obispo County, where the younger Van Gorden was engaged in the cattle business for thirty years. After the death of his father George Aan Gorden moved to Contra Costa County, in what he calls the garden spot of California, and where he now makes his home, which is only ten miles from Redwood Canyon, the place where the Van Gordens were living when they first heard of the discovery of gold only a few miles distant. In his boyhood days around San Francisco Van Gorden used to ride horses in match races, the races in those days being held at Alvarado, in Alameda County. He witnessed the memorable four-mile race at the Ocean View track in 1873 between Thad Stevens, Joe Daniels, Ballot Box, Irene Harding, Target and Kate Gift, and which was won by Thad Stevens, ridden by . Ross. Van Gordon later became an owner, and he raced horses on the Oakland track in ISGti, the first year it was opened.
