Unlike Oakland, the city of San Francisco had never received title to all its tide-lands from the state, and application had to be made to the legislature at Sacramento, direct. Early in 1868 the Senate Committee on Commerce and Navigation, of the state legislature, reported a bill granting to the Western Pacific Railroad Company and to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, submerged and tide-lands in the Bay of San Francisco, from the foot of Channel Street to Point San Bruno, with the right to extend the railroads of said companies or construct branches thereof, and to purchase other railroads, and use the same for the purpose of reaching the place or places on said premises selected as termini for said railroads, and to maintain and operate the same by steam or other power from the present lines of said railroads to the said termini on said premises, and with all necessary and proper depots, side-tracks, etc. The boundaries of this extraordinary grant are indicated on the map on page 96.[141] The total length from the foot of Channel Street to Point San Bruno was a little over 8 miles. The maximum breadth was approximately 2½ miles, and the area was estimated by opponents of the scheme to be not less than 6,620 acres. The value of such a water-front on the principal city of the Pacific Coast was to be measured in millions of dollars, and its importance to the Huntington interests was not limited to a money value alone. The possession of the San Francisco water-front south of Channel Street meant the occupation of the only part of the city at which a first-class railroad could reach tide-water. The reason for this is that all railroads must come into the city of San Francisco from the south or the southwest on account of the shape of the peninsula, and no railroad can conceivably be allowed to cross the main thoroughfare. Market Street, or to penetrate the thinly settled residential districts in the north. [Illustration: Boundaries of Railroad Tide-Land Grant, as proposed in 1868.]