El Buscaderos-Cowboy Action Shooting-Feature

Gold had been cropping up in California long before the '49ers found it. Native Americans had brought bits and pieces of the yellow metal to mission padres. But the friars kept the discovery to themselves, fearing the disruptive influence of outsiders.

In 1842, a ranchero, stopping to rest in a Southern California canyon after searching for some stray horses, dug up a few wild onions for lunch. He got more than a free meal. Clinging to the roots were gold flakes and nuggets that caused a minor scramble for gold. However, the find "played out" after a while and life resumed its languid California pace.

The real rush for gold started at a small millrace. In 1848 Captain John Sutter owned a sawmill in the Sierra Nevada foothills on the South Fork of the American River. Working as general utility man for Sutter was an emigrant from New Jersey named John Marshall. One morning, after shutting off the water to the mill, Marshall embarked on his usual inspection trip alongside the dry channel. And, in his own words, "My eye was caught with the glimpse of something shining in the bottom of the ditch. I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart jump, for I was certain it was gold." He had found a pea-sized piece of gold, and soon picked up a pocketful of the yellow metal.

Marshall and Sutter tried to keep the discovery a secret, but after a horseman rode through the streets of San Francisco, jubilantly waving a bottle full of glistening gold dust and shouting, "Gold! Gold! Gold!", the stampede to the foothills began. And nothing could stop it.

For I'm goin' to California..."

Gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848. A few months later, a remarkably modest little article in the March 15, 1848 edition of the San Francisco Californian announced that, "gold has been found in considerable quantities." When the newspaper decided to do a follow-up article, it found that its staff had all taken off for the gold field. The power of advertising!

As gold kept surfacing in other locations in California -- on the Feather, Yuba, Bear and Cosumes Rivers -- thousands of treasure hunters followed the yellow brick road to the Mother Lode country. Eventually, prospectors would flock to the Golden State from all over the world. They came from China and Chile; Great Britain and Germany; Spain, France, Peru and the Hawaiian Islands.

Sea vessels & prairie schooners.

And they came by any route that was handy or that they could afford: via the hazardous six-to nine-month voyage around Cape Horn; by way of a fever-plagued trek across the Isthmus of Panama; over tortuous trails carved into the Great Plains by prairie schooner. They left families, friends, jobs and whatever security they had known for the uncertainties of treasure hunting. Nothing was stronger than the lure of gold.

Before the Gold Rush, California's non-Native American population numbered only 15,000. By 1852 it had climbed to 250,000. San Francisco had only 812 residents in March, 1848. By 1850 it was a boom town of 25,000. In 1848 only 335 brave adventurers came across the Isthmus to California. In the peak year of 1852, more than 24,000 made that jungle journey. It seemed like gold fever had overpowered the fear of yellow fever.

While it was one thing to hit pay dirt, it was another thing to transform it into the precious stuff itself. And these early gold diggers had to depend on the integrity of gold buyers to evaluate their findings. So these early gold diggers depended on analysis, or assaying to determine the purity.

Everywhere the miners saw the sign "Gold Dust Bought", they knew they could sell their new-found wealth. They had to sell it. Because raw "placer" gold, though valuable, was of undetermined worth. It was not legal tender for debts, nor would the Federal Government accept it for custom duties. Merchants would accept gold dust -- but only at a discount. And they were a little loose in their evaluation of the dust. The phrase "How much can you raise in a pinch?" dates back to the time when storekeepers sold goods priced at "a pinch of dust." Plump fingers were an asset in those days.

So, miners had to unload their dust. But often at a price below its real worth. When they were cheated and hoodwinked by the crooked gold buyers, confidence men, thieves, bounders, scoundrels and rascals who preyed on the early mining towns. Fortunately, the Wells Fargo agents were cut from a different cloth. They bought miners' gold dust with easily-handled United States gold coins. And they were known far and wide for always paying a fair price.

Agents of the young banking and express company -- then known as Wells, Fargo & Co. -- set up shop in gold towns throughout the state. These agents were truly the resident experts in the precious metal. One agent alone knew of a hundred varieties of gold -- each with a different value -- around one small town.

To truly determine its purity and worth, Wells Fargo agents had to analyze, or assay, the raw gold. The process was "textbook chemistry." Pure gold had a grading of 1.000. California gold varied in purity from .630 to .930. Agents took gold dust, or ground up gold-bearing quartz, and melted it along with other powders in a clay crucible. The metal separated, and was again heated in a small bone dust cupel to draw off impurities. Nitric acid removed the silver, and what was left was - eureka! - pure gold. The percentage of gold compared to the weight of the sample gave purity -- or the amount of gold in a ton of ore.

No springs, honest weight.

When it came to totaling up the value of a miner's tote, how did Wells Fargo agents earn their gold stars for accuracy? By scrupulous use of one the world's finest weighing device -- the famous Gold Standard Balances made by Howard and Davis of Boston. Wherever agents went, these gleaming brass scales went with them. Said to be as accurate as the Scales of Justice -- or possibly even more so -- these balances had jeweled bearings and were mounted on a marble slab. Legend has it that these scales were so sensitive that they could weigh a short signature made with a lead pencil!

Since every fraction of an ounce mattered, miners watched anxiously as their gold dust was carefully placed on one side of the scales and calculated weights placed on the other. And when the agents announced the measured amount and its value, there was no question that they were correct. "Pay no more for dust than it is worth, nor make no arrangements with anyone to pay less," a Wells Fargo manager wrote in 1857 to the company's agent in the mining town of Colombia. And added, "This is the only true motto to do any kind of business on. It is the course we pursue." Words that were good as gold to a miner.