Anybody's Gold : The Story of California's Mining Towns

Here is the story of the years during which 600 million dollars in gold was lifted from stream beds, washed down from dry diggings, and crushed from hard quartz in what is still known as the Gold Country."Anybody's Gold" is filled with famous names: John Sutter, John C. Fremont, Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree -- and some infamous ones: Joaquin Murieta, Three-Fingered Jack, Madame Moustache, Rattlesnake Dick, and Black Bart. But mostly it is the story of clerks from Boston and Philadelphia, farmers from Indiana and Iowa, who came to seek their fortunes in the goldfields, and the dancehall girls and "good women" who followed them. Their story is as glittering and seductive as the gold itself The towns they founded bear names that testify to the romance of the era: Hangtown, Yankee Jim's, Whisky Hill, and Rough & Ready.Drawing on personal knowledge of the area, publications of the period, and unpublished personal diaries, the late Joseph Henry Jackson compiled this vivid and definitive narrative that splendidly recreates the excitement of California's most dramatic decade. As historian and author Wallace Stegner says in his Introduction to Anybody's Gold; "... if I were making a visit to the Mother Lode tomorrow, this is the book I would reach for first, and be most sure I took along, and consult most often".