The Story of the California Gold Rush

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Originally published in 1910 as a section of the author’s larger “Side Lights on American History,” this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 16 pages, tells the story of the California Gold Rush .

Sample passages:
The conversion of San Francisco was complete. The people were now ready to believe every report from the mines, however exaggerated; and immediately the rush began. Many sold all their possessions and hastened to the goldfields. All other business came to a standstill. The two newspapers suspended publication for want of workmen. By the middle of May three-fourths of the male population of the town had gone to the mines. The prices of shovels, pickaxes, blankets, and the like rose in a few days to six times their former value. The town council abandoned its sittings; the little church on the plaza was closed; farms were left tenantless, and waving fields of grain let run to waste. The judge abandoned the bench, and the doctor his patients. The excitement spread down the coast to Monterey, to Santa Barbara, to Los Angeles, and to San Diego, and the result was the same. The people were seized with a delirium, and the one universal cry along the coast, from the seashore to the mountains, was gold! gold!
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The dress of the miner consisted of a coarse woolen or checked shirt, loose trousers tucked into high, wrinkled boots, a broad-brimmed slouch hat, and a belt round the waist, from which bristled his knife and pistols. The average miner was honest, faithful to a friend, quick to resent an injury, but forgiving, and generous to a fault. He cultivated an air of reckless daring, and looked with contempt on all things effeminate. When too far from camp to reach it at night, he slept in the open air on a bed of leaves or wrapped in his blanket. He lived so near to Nature’s heart that in a few years, if he remained, he lost his hold on the refinements of civilization, and became almost as much a child of the forest as was the untamed Indian. The long hair falling over his shoulders and the untrimmed beard gave him a wild and shaggy appearance, but the twinkle of good humor in his eye soon dispelled any fears that his appearance might awaken in the timid.

About the Author:
Henry William Elson was a professor of history at Ohio State University. Other works include “History of the United States of America” and “Four Great American Presidents.”