Before 1862 Floods California was a cattle State

But, since most cattle were washed out to sea in the flood of 1862 it became a farming state after that.

Before California became a state great ships would come up to the cliffs of California and cattle men would throw off cattle hides off the cliffs down to the long boats. They traded for candles and manufactured goods from places like New York and Boston and then those ships Traveled all the way around the Horn back up the Atlantic to the East Coast of the U.S. OF course this is way before Califronia Statehood or when Trains started going from the East Coast to San Francisco. By 1876 it was a 3 1/2 day ride from New York to San Francisco.

Here is John Carr's experience who rode the Steamer Gem up from either Sacramento or San Francisco up the Sacramento River to Redding I believe in 1861. I think this quote is when he was in Weaverville but there are other accounts by him of the Sacramento River being 20 miles wide and picking men off barn roofs and out of trees so they didn't die and cattle and lifestock on the river heading for the ocean. If you can imagine the Sacramento river 20 miles wide think of looking out to sea towards Catalina Island which is 26 miles off of Long Beach and Los Angeles and Palos Verdes.
This is what he saw looking at the Sacramento river then riding up to Redding on the Steamer "Gem".

At Weaverville, John Carr was a witness to the sudden melt of snow by the heavy rain and onset of the flood in December 1861 on the Trinity River:

From November until the latter part of March there was a succession of storms and floods... The ground was covered with snow 1 foot (0.30 m) deep, and on the mountains much deeper... The water in the river ... seemed like some mighty uncontrollable monster of destruction broken away from its bonds, rushing uncontrollably on, and everywhere carrying ruin and destruction in its course. When rising, the river seemed highest in the middle... From the head settlement to the mouth of the Trinity River, for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, everything was swept to destruction. Not a bridge was left, or a mining-wheel or a sluce-box. Parts of ranches and miners cabins met the same fate. The labor of hundreds of men, and their savings of years, invested in bridges, mines and ranches, were all swept away. In forty-eight hours the valley of the Trinity was left desolate. The county never recovered from that disastrous flood. Many of the mining-wheels and bridges were never rebuilt.^[16]