Eldorado

The California Gold Rush of 1848-1853 may have led prospectors more often to bankruptcy than to riches, but the lure of gold also provoked an explosion of settlement and economic growth that transformed what had been a sleepy Mexican province into one of the most dynamic and cosmopolitan states of a newly transcontinental Union. Walker (Pacific Destiny), drawing heavily on contemporary accounts, gives a panoramic account of this epic. He describes the gold fever that gripped the country, and the glitter and squalor of boomtown San Francisco and the mining camps. He crafts finely etched portraits of some of the tens of thousands of ""Forty-niners"" who braved the malarial jungles of Panama, the treacherous sea passage around Cape Horn, or the grueling trek across the Plains and Rockies to seek their fortunes in the gold fields. In California, Walker notes, the gold economy almost overwhelmed the real economy; prices soared and crops went unharvested as farmers left the land, workers left their trades and soldiers deserted their posts to go panning in mountain streams. But by1853, the romance was fading; corporate mining interests were pushing out the prospectors and bringing in industrial hoses capable of blasting away whole hillsides. It's a quintessential American story, and Walker's meticulous research and stylish storytelling bring it vividly to life.