The focus
of change--and growth--in gold rush California was the once-tiny
hamlet of San Francisco. Only a few hundred people lived there
in the 1840s, but the discovery of gold brought unimaginable growth.
The city soon averaged 30 new houses and two murders each day.
A plot of San Francisco real estate that cost $16 in 1847, sold
for $45,000 just 18 months later. In less than two years the city
burned to the ground six times. But there was always money to
rebuild it bigger and better. Nearly a half-billion dollars worth
of gold passed through the city in the 1850s--and everyone wanted
their share.
Newly-rich
miners regularly came down from the hills to the new metropolis
of San Francisco. They were hungry for fun--any kind of fun.
Samuel Clemens
"They were rough in those times! They fairly reveled in
gold, whiskey, fights, and fandangoes, and were unspeakably happy.
The honest miner raked in from a hundred to a thousand dollars out
of his claim a day, and what with the gambling dens and other entertainments,
he hadn't a cent the next morning if he had any type of luck."
Thousands
of merchant profiteers were more than willing to help separate
a miner from his gold--merchants like Sam Brannan. By the mid
1850s, the man who started it all owned much of downtown San Francisco.
By 1856, his income was nearly a half-million dollars. Brannan
was the richest man in California, he even issued his own currency.
Sam Brannan represented the new California--bold, opportunistic,
entrepreneurial.
Gold was
a magnet that brought people--dynamic, energetic people--from
all over the world. This vibrant mix quickly turned San Francisco
into a cultural mecca, with theater, opera, and more newspapers
than any city but London. The city became the envy of the world--thanks
to a collision of cultures that became its greatest strength.
