With gold trading at more than $4,000 an ounce, a new gold rush is on. It’s caused a renewed interest in gold mining in the California hills. This recent gold rush has been dubbed Gold Rush 2.0 to differentiate it from the first gold rush in 1849 that attracted thousands of prospectors — Argonauts — from all over the world to San Francisco and the California gold diggings.
When I lived in California, the Gold Country was a major vacation spot for long weekends in summer and ski trips in winter. It still is. My family visited many gold rush towns over the years — Nevada City, Placerville, Sutter Creek, Angels Camp, Mokelumne Hill, Coulterville, and others. The town of Columbia, part of the Columbia National Historic Park, was a favorite. This preserved, nineteenth-century mining town had a wooden rocker or cradle set up so kids could search for gold flakes as sand, dirt, and water was sluiced down the rocker’s long chute.
In 1849, gold mining was a rough, dirty business, hard on the body. Early in the gold rush days, miners squatted at the edge of cold mountain streams or stood almost knee deep in them, in the scorching sun. Most used round pans with sloping sides that Chilean miners brought to shovel dirt in, swirl in the running water, and hope to see the glint of gold as the lighter particles of dirt washed out. You can still buy versions of these pans in Gold Country hardware or dry goods stores.
In 1849, when the onslaught of gold-crazed prospectors, those now known as Forty-Niners, arrived, merchants raked in more money than the miners by charging eye-watering prices for food, drink, tools, clothes, and transportation. Ghirardelli was there, selling the miners chocolate. In 1854, Levi Strauss landed in San Francisco and sold work pants and tents. Captain William A. Richardson and his son Esteban made their money by transporting miners to and from the goldfields, as well as by supplying prime beef, produce, and fresh water to the hotels and tent kitchens in San Francisco. I am writing about these wild days in my next book.