Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California

by J.S. Holliday

In this vivid account of the birth of modern California, J.S. Holliday frames the gold rush years within the larger story of the state's transformation from the quietude of a Mexican hinterland in the 1840s to the forefront of entrepreneurial capitalism by the 1890s. No other state, no nation experienced such an adolescence of freedom and success. By 1883 California was hailed as "America, only more so."

Holliday's boldly interpretive narrative has the authority and immediacy of an eyewitness account. This eminent historian recreates the masculine world of mining camps and rough cities, where both business and pleasure were conducted far from hometown eyes and conventional inhibitions. He follows gold mining's swift evolution from treasure hunt to vast industry; traces the prodigal plunder of California's virgin rivers and abundant forests; and describes improvised feats of engineering, breathtaking in their scope and execution.

Holliday also conjures the ambitious, often ruthless Californians whose rush for riches rapidly changed the the Silver Kings of the Comstock Lode, the timber barons of the Sierra forests, the Big Four who built the first transcontinental railroad, and the lesser profit-seekers who owned steamboats, pack mules, gambling dens and bordellos―and, most important for California's future, the farmers who prospered by feeding the rapidly growing population. This wildly laissez-faire economy created California's image as a risk-taking society, unconstrained by fear of failure.

The central theme of Rush for Riches is how, after decades of careless freedom, the miners were finally reined in by the farmers, and how their once mutually dependent relationship soured into hostility. This potential violence led to a dramatic courtroom decision in 1884 that shut down the mighty hydraulic mining operations―the end of California's free-for-all youthful exuberance.

Unique in its format, this beautiful book offers not only a compelling narrative but also almost two hundred fifty illustrations, one hundred in full color, that richly illuminate the themes and details of the daguerreotypes, photographs, paintings, lithographs, sketches, and specially drawn maps.

Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000

Genres: History, Nonfiction

366 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 1999

Reviews

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rush for Riches is a coffee-table sized book full of beautiful illustrations, including daguerreotypes, drawings, photos and crude-to-sophisticated maps, but it's also a substantial history of the uniquely sudden growth and development of California--thanks to the rush for gold. I've read a lot of California history but somehow failed to grasp the huge significance of the Gold Rush and, especially, of its environmental impacts. The miners ruthlessly and thoughtlessly trashed the state's pristine rivers and stripped the adjacent hills of trees for their mining structures and buildings. Nor was I aware of the monumental conflict between the miners and the farmers and towns of the valleys in the 1870s and 1880s. By that time mining had become industrial and hydraulic, with massive structures and massive amounts of water used to break down hillsides and mountains to extract gold. This resulted in massive effluent or debris that flowed down the ruined rivers into the valleys where farming had developed, cover farmland and towns in anywhere from three to thirty feet of rock and gravel and destroying or anyway hindering California's burgeoning agricultural economy. The mining companies claimed that because their work was upstream they had a superior right to do this; the farmers claimed those rights did not include ruining their lands. The farmers won in court in 1884 and the mining companies, reluctantly and unhurriedly, had to develop alternative techniques.

[Bob Stern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great text and lots of photos and maps. Best history of California to 1880's I ever read.

[Gina Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the most informative books about the California Gold Rush. The text not only engages the readers with its variety of primary sources, but the hundreds of photos and drawing depicting the area. This would be a great source for high school and college level students to use for research.

[Nico Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great write up of gold rush politics and life in California. Was disappointed in how under-discussed indigenous people were, hardly mentioned after 1850

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book gives a compressive historical view of CA years 1849-1899. The focus on the impact of the gold found in CA. A pleasant read.