Gold.. The Story of the Lure of The West: By G.C. Stevens

 

A mine, outside of Victor, Colorado, went “nighty-night” in 1961. Loved this photo of it, and the sunset over the Sangre De Christo mountains. Photo by Dan Oelrich 

The whisper started in the east “Gold in California—ounces in every pan!” Young men and old men alike, saddle-maker’s apprentices, and adventure seekers, read it by lamplight and felt the walls of life shrink. Deep debts, damp winters, none of it mattered once the word west lodged in their chest like a bullet. Gold.... Was the draw 

By springtime, the harbors crawled with dreamers. Many sold their personal items for passage on a clipper rounding Cape Horn. Six months of gales and scurvy left them gaunt, but when the ship raised the pine-dark coast, they laughed aloud for the first time in years.  Sutter’s Fort was chaos: canvas tents, Chinese cooks, Kanaka sailors, Mormon battalion deserters—all swinging picks under a merciless sun. 

Many staked a claims on the American River where the water ran cold over black sand. Days blurred into muscle ache and the ping of iron on stone. Then, one August dawn, a young man's pan flashed yellow. A single nugget, thumb-sized, heavy as sin. He whooped so loud a grizzly answered from the ridge. Word traveled faster than wagons. Farmers abandoned plows mid-furrow; clerks bolted from ledgers; a preacher traded his Bible for a cradle. They came by oxcart, by mule, by foot across the alkali flats, dying of thirst with gold dust sewn in their hems. San Francisco, once a village of adobe and whales, sprouted saloons and three-story hotels overnight. A cup of water cost a dollar; a rotten potato, five. Some never struck it rich again, but the river gave enough to buy a ranch in the foothills. Some nights they still hear the rush of water over gravel, still sees the fever in new eyes arriving on the trail. The gold drew them west, yes—but it was the promise of open sky that kept them.

Jesse James Father left his family for the call of Gold

Photo courtesy Patrick Meguair

Robert Salle James married Zerelda Cole on December 28, 1841. His children were Alexander Franklin, Robert, Jesse and Susan Lavenia. He attended Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, graduating in 1843 with honors and a Bachelor of Arts. The family soon relocated to Clay County, Missouri, where Zerelda's mother and stepfather were living, but Robert commuted back to Kentucky and eventually received a Master of Arts from Georgetown. He was considered a gifted student and a skilled orator. James was a noted revivalist. He was among the founders of William Jewell College in 1849. In April 1850, James left his family for California to visit his brother Drury Woodson James, who had already relocated to the state He also planned to prospect for gold and preach to the crowds of goldminers during the California gold rush. Shortly after arriving in California in August 1850, he contracted cholera and died on August 18, 1850, in the Hangtown Gold Camp.

                                                 Wyatt Earp from the authors collection

After leaving Arizona, Wyatt and his wife, Josephine “Sadie” Marcus Earp, had decided to head north to Alaska to follow the cash of several of the gold rushes. Though Wyatt wasn’t looking to get rich on the end of a pick and shovel. Instead, he would be “mining the miners” by setting up a saloon and gambling operation.

Ref Wyatt Earp in Alaska - by Michael R Dougherty