Eldorado: The California Gold Rush Book

No event of American life prior to the Civil War ap-proached the impact of the rush for California gold. The first traces of raw gold were found at a sawmill on the American River in January, 1848. Within a year, tens of thousands of 'Forty-niners' were making their way to the vast new territory conquered in the war with Mexico. Never before in history, and never since, had so great a gold-bearing tract been found-a belt seventy miles wide running the length of California, from the Klamath Moun-tains in the north to the Mojave Desert in the south. All routes to San Francisco, gateway to the mines, were lengthy-six months on average-arduous, and dangerous: overland from the Missouri River across the Rocky Moun-tains and the Sierra Nevada, via the pre-canal Isthmus of Panama, or on a sailing ship around Cape Horn. Eldorado presents the full, colorful, character-filled story of those who risked their lives chasing the end of the rainbow-not just Americans, but a polyglot horde of men, women, and children of all races from the farthest corners of the globe.Read More