Gold Country

Most of the world's gold is locked deep underground--embedded in hard rock. But California gold was different--easily accessible to anyone with a few simple tools and a willingness to work hard. Also unique was the political environment. California became a part of the United States just a few days after Marshall's discovery; and so the gold rush came before any meaningful government could be established. It was an unlikely intersection of anarchy and geology. Unlike anywhere else, the gold in California was easy to get and free for the taking.

It was free--and it was plentiful. Soon there was too much money in California and too little of everything else. The lessons of supply and demand were often painful. A forty-niner who earned a dollar a day back home, could make twenty-five dollars in a day of mining--but that was often just enough to buy dinner.

It wasn't just Sutter's gardens that were raided--by the end of 1849, his grand empire had collapsed completely. Sutter did not have the entrepreneurial spirit of the new Californians and he didn't have gold fever. He wanted an agricultural empire and refused to alter his vision. In the new California, Sutter was simply in the way. The 49ers literally trampled his crops and tore down his fort for the building materials. Dejected, disillusioned, he eventually left the state. The man who had the best opportunity to capitalize on the discovery of gold--never even tried. Instead, California was filling up with a very different kind of businessman--and it was filling up fast. Camps sprouted up and evolved into ramshackle boomtowns to serve the growing population--places with accurate names like: Hangtown, Gouge Eye, Rough and Ready, and Whiskeytown. Places to avoid--were it not for the gold. Places that were wild, open, free.
The class society of the east was gone and opportunity was everywhere. It was pure freedom, and a pure free market. People who had a skill were in demand regardless of who they were. Women, for example, who couldn't earn much money back home, found their domestic skills had considerable value here.

Part of the reason they could charge so much for their talents was the fact that women were rare in the early gold rush days.
Women weren't the only ones to realize the entrepreneurial opportunities of California. People from all walks of life quickly understood that there was just as much money to be made serving the miners as there was digging for gold. A steamboat operator could earn 40,000 dollars in a single month--a chicken farmer could sell each precious egg for fifty cents.

King of the wheeling, dealing entrepenuers was Sam Brannan. The man who pulled the trigger on the gold rush was expanding his sphere of influence--and earning unheard of profits. While miners talked of gold, Brannan shrewdly bought up carpet tacks-- every tack in California. By cornering the market, he could extort huge profits, a technique he executed flawlessly--over and over. But Brannan was only the first in a long line of entrepenuers who made their fortunes without digging for gold. In 1853--according to legend--this man stitched a pair of pants out of canvas; sturdy pants that later became popular with the miners--very popular. His name:Levi Strauss.But during the gold rush, Strauss was best known for his prosperous dry good business. It wasn't until 1872 that he added a critical innovation to canvas pants, the metal rivet--a breakthrough that would change the course of American fashion.
This New York butcher decided one day to walk to California. Eventually, he opened a meat market in Placerville--and later took his profits to Milwaukee, where he set up a meat processing plant. His name was Phillip Armour and the Armour meat packing company became one of the nation's largest.
Armour's neighbor in Placerville, was an enterprising wheelbarrow maker who dreamed of bigger things. After saving every dime for six years, he left California for his home in Indiana. There, he plowed his profits into the family wagon-making business. The man's name was John Studebaker--and the family enterprise would go on to build covered wagons for the Oregon-bound pioneers, and later--automobiles.
These two businessmen also looked west and saw opportunity. Sensing the unsettled atmosphere in California--they offered what many miners desperately wanted: stability. The offered secure, honest banking, transportation, even mail delivery. They were Henry Wells and William Fargo. Their company, Wells Fargo, became a giant in the banking industry.

The most famous celebrity of the gold rush era came to California as a complete unknown and took a job writing for the San Francisco Call. It wasn't long until his fanciful story about a frog jumping contest in nearby Calaveras County thrust him into the national spotlight.
His name: Samuel Clemens--Mark Twain. Clemens boss at the Call was also destined to become a best-selling author, Brett Harte. Unlike Clemens, Harte wrote almost exclusively about western characters--colorful stories about miners, bandits, and gamblers. His tale of an orphaned baby adopted by a group of rough miners would make him famous and rich.For every famous success, there were a thousand smaller stories of people who used their wits, not their shovels-- to find a fortune. Creative entrepenuers were everywhere--looking for a new angle--a new way to make money, more money.
In 1848 and early 49, everyone was making money--but the party didn't last forever. For most miners, it didn't last very long at all.