Mud, Blood, and Gold: San Francisco in 1849

San Francisco, 1849. It was a time and place like no other in American history. As word of the discovery of gold in California spread, people from all over the world descended on San Francisco--ground zero for the avalanche of humanity and goods pouring into the fabled El Dorado.There have been many books on the Gold Rush, but Mud, Blood, and Gold is the first to focus solely on San Francisco as it was at the peak of the gold frenzy. With a 'you are there' immediacy, author Rand Richards vividly brings to life what San Francisco was like during the landmark year of 1849. Based on eyewitness accounts and previously overlooked official records, Richards chronicles the explosive growth of a wide-open town rife with violence, gambling, and prostitution, all of it fueled by unbridled greed.At the beginning of 1848, the California village of Yerba Buena had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and was technically still Mexican territory. On January 24, foreman James Marshall picked up some glittering morsels of gold from the American River, and what was soon called our national madness quickly began. The Gold Rush transformed the nation, fueling the rapid growth of Yerba Buena, which was soon renamed San Francisco. Within several months the population had mushroomed to more than 25,000. Soon after, the forty-niners poured into the gold fields from around the world, driving even greater growth of the city.This is not a history of the Gold Rush itself; rather, Richards has written a concise and engrossing study of a year in the life of San Francisco, illustrating how it was transformed into a metropolis overnight. It is an exciting, often humorous, often sad story filled with colorful characters, boundless greed, and brilliant innovation. Some of the players, such as William Tecumseh Sherman, would go on to greater fame.Fifty-two illustrations, appendix, chronology, bibliography, and index.