Beyond California Fever

As soon as reports about gold in California emerged, new reports were already being told of gold in Nevada and Arizona.  Then in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming...even Washington and British Columbia.  It was gold frenzy!

The stories magnified with each telling, the nuggets growing as big as a man's fist, of shimmering dust just waiting to be scooped into a prospector's pan, transforming him from a pauper to a prince overnight.  All he had to do was to get there.

In southern Arizona  in 1853, along the Gila River, a strike was made and eventually 1200 prospectors and suppliers established the thriving community of Gila City.  It's reported that it began with "a saloon to supply the necessities of life and later added a grocery store and Chinese restaurant for the luxuries."  Gila City could be said to be the model for all mining towns that sprang up throughout the West.  Wickenburg and Tombstone in Arizona, Elk City and Oro Fino in Idaho, Diamond City, Virginia City and Bannock in Montana, Virginia City and Aurora in Nevada.

These cities rose out of the wilderness, boomed for a few years, then lapsed into obscurity and decay when the ore was gone.  Gila City, for instance, held the reputation for the wickedest city in the West, but by 1874 when the $2 million worth of gold was gone, one traveler said it was "three chimneys and a coyote."

These gold rushers formed the beginning of permanent settlement in America's vast interior from Missouri to the Sierras.  Many would spend the rest of their lives wandering the West in search of new gold.  Some did manage to find rich veins of gold or silver, but most never managed to find their El Dorado.

Next time...Some towns became mighty cities
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Today in Pioneer History:   "On July 24, 1911, On July 24, 1911, American archeologist Hiram Bingham gets his first look at Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca settlement in Peru that is now one of the world's top tourist destinations.

The Babylon of the Pacific

In 1848 San Francisco was known as Yerba Buena, and few people even knew it existed.  Fewer than 1000 people lived there when gold was shouted on the streets by Sam Brannan.  His short term goal was to depopulate the town and then to transform it long term into a boomtown like no other.  San Francisco became the port of entry for the Gold Rush.

Where only barren hills lay, sloping down to muddy flats, shack and brick buildings rose to house doctor and lawyer offices, gambling halls, dry good stores, restaurants, theaters, even an opera house.  By the end of 1850, San Francisco had a population of 30,000 and in five years 55,000 called the city home, living in shanty towns, rooming houses, and mansions built from new found gold.

It wasn't without problems.  The supply of labor and raw materials was lacking.  Even unskilled labor was in short supply so that wages rose sky high.  Lumber zoomed from 4 cents a foot to $1 a foot, and it was scarce.  "Rag houses",  squares of canvas stretched across wooden supports replaced wooden houses and became a major part of the city. At least $345 million in gold passed through the city between 1848-1850 with most going into the pockets of merchants, gamblers and prostitutes.  Properties were sold at 10 times the price just a few months ago.

San Francisco was the place to dine on duck and oysters, to bet hundreds on the turn of a card, to squander a fortune on a fancy woman.  By the early 1850s, the city was swarming with prostitutes who came from all over the world.   In 1853, the height of the gold rush, San Francisco had 48 brothels, 537 drinking establishments , 144 restaurants and 46 gambling dens.  One visitor commented, "California can and does furnish the best bad things that are available in America."

Next time...Enough of that!
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Today in Pioneer History: "On July 17, 1955, Disneyland, Walt Disney's metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, opens. The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California, and soon brought in staggering profits.

The Rip-Roaring Mining Camps

Mark Twain once said of the Gold Rush days,

"the only population of the kind the world has ever seen.  Two hundred thousand young men, not simpering, dainty...weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves...the very pick and choice of the world's glorious ones."

The gold mining camps, stretched 200 miles along the Sierras' western slopes.  The men were determined to strike it rich and spent long hours in freezing rivers just for an ounce or more often nothing at all.  They formed partnerships to build dams and divert streams for easier access.

Surprisingly, many were well-to-do men lured by the adventure as much as by the gold, but most came to escape poverty and make a better life for their families.  Tensions ran high - a small disagreement over a card game could result in a gun battle, disputes over ownership of an ounce of gold dust often ended in a bloody brawl.

In the early days these all male societies where there were no preachers, mothers, wives or teachers, became a haven for profanity, vulgarity and crude behavior.  The camps began to support a floating population of professional gamblers, barkeepers, con artists and prostitutes.  Lynch law was the only law, and lawbreakers were either hanged or whipped on the flimsiest of evidence.

All foreigners were banned in most camps.  Mexican "greasers" were despised and their claims ignored.  The Chinese worked camps abandoned by whites and were made to fight as entertainment with medieval lances and swords.  Sometimes anti-foreign sentiment was based on genuine corncern as when an absentee capitalist hired low wage labor to earn him a fortune, or slaves were forced to work for their owners - in Free California territory. 

Gradually the wild camps were deserted with the men moving on to Nevada or settling down in the coastal towns.  A few got rich, the majority were as poor as when they came. For a time the Gold Rush had a society all its own in American history.

Next time...The Babylon of the Pacific
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On July 13, 1866, construction began on Fort Kearny the most important outpost guarding the Bozeman Trail, named after John Bozeman who blazed a trail off the Oregon Trail through Montana in 1863.

Gold Rush Entrepreneur - Sam Brannan

The carrier of the gold fever was one Sam Brannan, merchant, newspaper owner and a leader in the California Mormon church.  Less "saintly" in practice than in preaching, he had quarreled with Brigham Young more than once which led to his eventual excommunication from the church for refusing to turn over his share of gold to the Mormons.

Brannon was not a prospector, per se.  He saw his future in supplies - picks, shovels, pans, coffee, food.  He could sell these at exorbitant prices as the first merchant in the gold fields.  So in 1848, Brannan went to Sutter's Mill to check out the gold stories and was convinced the rumors were true.  He returned to San Francisco with a sample of gold and a loud voice. 

Brannan went through the streets shouting "Gold! Gold!" and showing off his sample.  People, who had before thought it all a crazy story, were now packing up for the trip within a day.  Within two weeks, San Francisco was a ghost town as everyone who could walk had gone to Sutter's, including Brannan who was there to greet them with all the supplies they needed.

By summer all the towns in southern California contained no adult males in residence.  The situation was something the US Army could not discipline as one soldier said, "The struggle between right for $6 a month and wrong for $75 a day is rather a severe one."

The hysteria spread to Hawaii, around the Cape Horn and back to the East Coast where President Polk addressed Congress in December 1848 to give credence to the gold rumors.  Two days later 230 ounces of gold were placed on public display in Washington.  From Boston to St. Louis, from Florida to Minnesota thousands were dreaming of the wealth of El Dorado and the greatest rush in American history had begun.

Next time - Meet the Argonauts
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On July 3,  1890, Idaho, the last of the 50 states to be explored by whites, is admitted to the Union.

The Riches and Ruin of John Sutter

A whisper among a small party of laborers building a sawmill 40 miles from Sutter's Fort started one of the most wild and crazy events in American history...

The men under supervision of carpenter James Marshall had been working through 1847 beside the south forth of the American River in California.  On January 23, 1848, Marshall decided to make one of his periodic tests of the millrace by letting the sluice gates open all night and allowing the river water to run through. The following morning he noticed tiny yellow specks at the bottom of the millrace.  He made a few simple tests and was convinced he had found gold.

A workman on the site made a note, "Monday 24th -- this day some kind of mettle was found in the tail race that looks like gould first discovered by James Martial." 

Four days later Marshall visited Sutter's Fort and broke the news.  More tests confirmed the gold, but John Sutter was not happy.  He had build a Baron like feudal domain in the heart of California and his word was law.  He was wealthy, satisfied and had no desire to change his easy life.  He knew if word got out his kingdom would be invaded by hordes of prospectors who would destroy his land.

Sutter had been an unsuccessful speculator in Switzerland and America, coming to America in 1830.  He was charming, generous and persuaded the Mexican governor of California to grant him 50,000 acres east of San Francisco Bay.  There he built a huge farming, ranching and trading empire.

Sutter tried to keep the discovery a secret, but word got out in San Francisco where most of the 800 residents were skeptical at first.  It took several months for the idea to be even checked out. 

Sutter spent his final years asking Congress to reimburse him for land taken by prospectors.  He was never granted compensation and died in 1880 at the age of 77 a much less wealthy man that those that discovered gold.






Next time...Entrepreneur Sam Brannan
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  "On June 29, 1835, determined to win independence for the Mexican State of Texas, William Travis raises a volunteer army of 25 soldiers and prepares to liberate the city of Anahuac.

Gold Rush Fever

Starting in 1849 a disease called "gold rush fever" began to rule the West.  California was the first and most spectacular of the mining frontier.  From 1849 in California, to 1858 in British Columbia, to the Pacific Northwest in the 1860s, and the Black Hills of Dakota in the 1870s...miners followed the smell of gold.
gold.  Women's Periodicals of the time condemned this "gold fever" because it "unhinged men, making them free as a bird as they flew from many a cheerful fireside, and many a happy home".

Because women were so few in these mining camps, their appearance was quite noteworthy.  In Nevada in 1853, the arrival of a group of women caused quite a sensation..."The men stood and gazed at us with mouth and eyes wide open every time we went out" wrote one of the women.

Not all women who were part of the mining camps were of the "less than respectable variety".  Many went for the same reason men went, some accompanied their husbands and some, well, they followed the miners from camp to camp for the men's pleasure.

So how did women shape the mining frontier? Or did the mining frontier shape them?

Next time...

Julesburg the Wicked Town

Julesburg had plenty of legends of its own wickedness.  Dating back to Jules Reni, the French Canadian trapper and founder, he reportedly poured a barrel of whiskey into a barrel of flour and called it whiskey bread :)

Julesburg was said to "never put a lid" on reckless, violent behavior of its citizens, and so it became the Black Hills choice for evil doings.

By 1876, 75,000 gold seekers were searching for gold in the Black Hills.  As newspapers of that period claimed, if you wanted to find your way to the gold diggings, just follow the campfire circles.

Interestingly enough, not all pioneers journeying into the Black Hills during the 1860s to 1870s were prospectors.  Many were simple homesteaders who perhaps preferred a cooler climate than the Plains...or maybe took a wrong turn!

Many came looking for ranches - building the familiar sod houses of the Plains in the beginning, cellars and finally log cabins.  Like their southern equals, those who settled the Black Hills were tough, determined and willing to sacrifice to carve a home for their families.

Next time...The Sioux Confederacy