Gold Rush

One of the greatest adventures of human history includes the American Gold Rush. Young men and women left their homes in search of gold. These people left in 1849, and hence, were labelled as the forty-niners. It was an entirely different story when these people reached California. The conditions were so bad that the people did not have enough water to drink. Californians got wind of this, they started selling water to the immigrants, and sometimes the price of water went up to $100.

A steamboat operator could earn 40,000 dollars in one month, and a farmer could sell one egg for 50cents! Creative entrepreneurs were everywhere selling their ideas. Levi Strauss started his business here, along with many more names that went on to make more money.

People kept coming, and there was gold in the riverbeds, but it was getting difficult to extract it. Panning was not yielding much gold. It seemed to be a losing battle because the gold reserves seemed to be depleting fast. Other advanced techniques of mining started to be explored.

As gold became tricky to extract, changes occurred in California. By the early 1850s, a man alone could not find gold; he needed technology and expertise. First miners came together, formed a group, and realised that they needed to depend on each other. They decided to turn the river the other way so that the gold on the riverbed could be extracted.

Soon, other techniques were needed, and a few major corporations replaced the small group of miners. These came up with more ways to extract gold; these ways were capital intensive in nature. These corporations employed the miners that stayed back, it was extremely abhorred by the miners, but they had to live with whoever paid their daily bread. It was ironic that they came to become wealthy and extract gold for themselves, but then they were paid to do the exact same thing for others.

The corporations came up with effective techniques that did the job. Nevertheless, these corporations also gave way to the first environmental disasters that struck California. Pristine rivers were rerouted. The worst technique was hydraulic mining introduced in 1853. Jets of water that are so powerful that they can kill a man 200 feet away, were shot at the ground, which tore the riverbed. Californians, by this time, had developed the attitude of exploiting their own land and did not care for the harm that was being done.

Forty miners worked tirelessly but had nothing to show for their efforts. Other ways were sought to make money. People turned to poker, to try their luck, and then to crimes. Jails that were previously empty were then filling up at an increasing pace.

People seemed to see that it was a losing battle. These eventually died in California trying to work hard towards making their dream a reality, but they never achieved their dream. Many left while others stayed. They still had hope. A few times people find gold unexpectedly, but it was so rare that it only encouraged those who are back to keep digging.

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