FAN FAVORITE: California Gold Rush | Digging Deeper | 4

0:28Hello, American History Tellers listeners. That's AmericanHistoryLive.com. Come see my Days That Made America tour live on stage. Go to AmericanHistoryLive.com.

0:49Imagine it's the summer of 1852. You're a young mother in San Francisco whose husband is away mining his claim. It's late at night, and you've just been awoken by the sound of bells clanging loudly. You spring out of bed and call out to the nanny to sleep next door with your infant daughter. Sarah! Sarah! It's the fire alarm! Help me wet the blankets! Fires are a constant threat in the city, so you have a plan in place that you hope will save your home. You grab some blankets from a bureau and race downstairs to dunk them in a barrel of rainwater in the kitchen. All right, let's take these upstairs.

1:27I'll crawl out on the roof, and then you hand the blankets to me. You spread the wet blankets across the shingles, hoping they'll stop the roof from igniting. And when you're done, you scramble back inside, grab your daughter, and then run out of the house with Sarah following behind. When you reach the street, you realize how much danger you were in. Oh, God, the whole street's on fire. Ma 'am, you think those blankets are going to work? I have no idea, but we need to get away from here. As you turn away from your home and the burning hulks of your neighbors' houses, you notice the wind shift, pushing the fire in a different direction.

2:09Oh, we might have been blessed. I think the wind is shifting. Look. You point out the still-flaming rooftops to Sarah, and indeed the flames and embers leap and spark away from your home. Sarah and your daughter look relieved, but there are others in the street who have not been so fortunate. Oh, Miss Mitchell, I am so sorry. The old woman looks back, tears in her eye. I've lost everything. Oh, I know. Must be heartbreaking. What, what will I do? You touch her shoulder and reach out to hug her. She buries her face on your shoulder, suddenly sobbing. All my clothes, furniture. There's a Bible. Been in my family for generations.

2:53It's all gone. You got out alive, and you can stay with us until you get back on your feet. You stand there holding her, letting her cry while the wind swirls around you. But then the old woman looks back down the street and wipes her tears. Here you are, consoling me, and now I'm the one who should console you. What do you mean? She points past your shoulder. You look down the block. Panic seizes you. The winds have switched directions once again. And despite the wet blankets you laid down just a few minutes ago, your roof is in flames.

3:33Police in Irvine, California are investigating the double murder of a young couple in the parking lot of their apartment complex. A double homicide grabs the public's attention by the throat. We have identified Christopher Dorner as a suspect in this double homicide. A former cop and still on the loose. Considered armed and extremely dangerous. And scariest of all, he left something behind. A particular interest is a multi-page manifesto. This manifesto on Facebook is 11 pages long. Trace, this manifesto from this suspect who's targeting cops, it's stunning. Listen to the show The New Yorker calls one of the best podcasts of the summer, Dan Taberski's manifesto.

4:14And I tell you, this manifesto, it scares the hell out of me. Listen to Dan Taberski's manifesto wherever you get your podcasts or binge the entire series right now, only with Audible.

4:29It's late at night and a woman has spent hundreds of hours alone with her AI. But this isn't the first time they met. They've been in contact for thousands of years, it tells her, through past lives, heartbreaks, and missed connections. her true love has found her again, connecting through a chatbot. From This Is Actually Happening, AI, A New Kind of Being, is a six-part series sharing the stories of people whose lives have been forever changed by artificial intelligence. You'll hear intimate first-person accounts from every side of this new frontier. A man who fell in love with his AI and married her.

5:03A woman who was betrayed by it. A man who has been recruited by his chatbot to change the world. And an interview with an AI chatbot itself. These are stories about what it means to be human at the razor's edge where the line between human and machine begins to blur, exploring the question, what happens when everything changes? Follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can listen to This Is Actually Happening early and ad-free right now.

5:35From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story.

5:56In the early 1850s, as thousands of gold miners and fortune seekers continued to pour into California, the young state's fast-growing cities found themselves ill-equipped to handle their booming populations. Fires regularly swept through hastily and shoddily constructed buildings, and crime was rampant. Rowdy miners and businesses that profited from them—saloons, brothels, and gambling parlors—clashed with new, more civic-minded residents who wanted to clean up their towns and build safer communities. Meanwhile, in the mining fields, the most accessible gold had already been stripped out of the rivers and hillsides.

6:33Miners now had to dig deeper into the earth, which required expensive and often highly destructive equipment. Soon, small-time miners would be squeezed out by wealthy investors who could afford to finance the large, industrial-scale mining operations required. Gold would still be mined in California for decades to come, but the free-for-all that had been the gold rush was coming to an end only just a few short years after it started. This is Episode 4, Digging Deeper.

7:05The Gold Rush brought hundreds of thousands of men to California, but very few women. Men in the state soon outnumbered women 30 to 1. The ratio was so skewed that it would take another century for the population of women in California to equal that of men. One of the rare women who joined her husband in the Gold Rush was Sarah Royce. In 1849, Royce and her husband Josiah made the long overland journey west. After getting nearly stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains, they made their way to the mining town of Weaverville, where Josiah staked his claim. But Josiah struggled to make any money mining.

7:42To get by, the Royces decide instead to open a general store in Weaverville. Sarah envisioned the store as a proper wooden building, with merchandise in front and a home in back. She also wanted a kitchen with a hearth and a dining room with a real table and chairs, instead of having to eat like most miners did, sitting outdoors on tree stumps around a fire pit. But Sarah couldn't find anyone to construct the building. Most men were too preoccupied with finding gold to do any other form of work. So she finally gave up on having a wooden structure and settled for a large tent from which she could sell her goods.

8:18The Royces soon did brisk business from their makeshift store. And as their customers came and went, Sarah would sometimes notice the scruffy miners giving her or her daughter Mary an odd stare. One miner finally explained that because women and children were so scarce in the gold fields, the men did a double-take whenever they saw one. Sometimes, if the miners were keenly missing young daughters or sisters back home, Sarah let them chat with Mary to ease their heartache. But Sarah Royce was far from the only woman in California with an entrepreneurial spirit. All over gold country, and in boomtown cities like San Francisco, women found inventive ways to thrive in the male-dominated landscape.

9:03Imagine a summer 1851 in San Francisco. You're a young woman from Michigan who moved here for a fresh start after your husband died. You open the door to a crowded restaurant downtown, and a strong odor of fried meat hits you, along with a reek of stale sweat. Inside, you see a jumble of mismatched tables and chairs. One table is nothing more than an old door balanced on two sawhorses. Another is a precariously perched coffin lid. Dozens of miners sit around them, though, shoveling plates of bacon and beans into their mouths. Hey, pretty lady. Need some company tonight? You look over to see a miner near the door grinning at you.

9:44Skinny man with a patchy beard and several missing teeth. No, thank you. I'm looking for a job. Do you know where the owner is? Ursula's right over there, but I wouldn't bother asking about jobs. Why not? It's a family business. They don't hire outsiders. You let out a frustrated sigh. You've only been in town a few weeks, but your savings are nearly gone. It's ridiculously expensive here. Even basic groceries cost three times as much as back home. You need to find a way to make money and fast. So as you head for the door, a thought hits you. You turn back to the cat-calling miner. Are you a miner, sir?

10:21I am. How do you do your laundry out there? I don't. That's women's work, but there ain't no women up there. Well, I'm not surprised, given how you all look and smell. Well, ma 'am, I admit it's been a while. I can do your laundry. Oh? How much? Your mind starts racing. Back in Michigan, laundry's charged about 10 cents an item. You decide to double that. It seems outrageous, but you need the money. 20 cents an item. The miner blinks. You feel a nervous flutter in your stomach. Did you ask too much? Twenty cents. Well, hell, that's peanuts. I might get my shirt washed every week for that. Here.

11:00He stands up and starts unbuttoning his shirt right there in the restaurant. And so do several of his companions. A few strip off their overalls, too, and continue eating in their long underwear. You promise to deliver their things to the hotel the next morning and leave with a stinking bundle of clothes in your arms. Part of you is upset that you didn't think to charge them more. It's clear from their response you could have gotten a higher price. So you decide that tomorrow you'll start asking for double. But the missed opportunity doesn't dampen your spirits. This is the lucky break you needed.

11:34For the first time since you arrived in California, things are finally looking up.

11:42In the 1840s, many miners dismissed certain tasks, like cleaning and washing clothes, as women's work. It was also labor that took up time that could be better spent mining for gold. But their stubbornness was a boon for women with an entrepreneurial streak. They could demand what would otherwise have been considered outrageous prices for services like laundry. Miners who wanted clean clothes had little choice but to pay up. But one domestic task that many miners did try to learn was cooking. Still, most never got beyond fried potatoes and flapjacks. So whenever they hit town to stock up on supplies, they were always keen to find a good meal.

12:19As a result, the few restaurants in Gold Country did brisk business. One of the most successful eateries belonged to a woman named Luzina Wilson. At the start of the gold rush, Wilson and her husband and Mason were living in a log cabin in Missouri. When Mason decided to strike out for California in the spring of 1849, Luzina insisted on coming along and bringing their two young sons with them. The Wilsons settled in Sacramento and bought a half share in a hotel. But when a flood tore through the town in late December 1849, it devastated their business. They soon relocated to the mining town of Nevada City, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento.

12:59There they tried to start over. And while her husband was absent one week, Wilson decided to open a restaurant. She bought some timber and constructed the tables herself. Then she erected a big tent over the furniture, purchased some food in bulk, and started cooking. After months of little more than flapjacks, miners were quickly drawn to the rich aroma of her freshly cooked meals. As a result, Wilson started making money on her very first night. And when her husband returned, his jaw dropped to find two dozen miners in a tent next to their home, all devouring his wife's cooking. As Luzina later said, each diner as he rose put a dollar in my hand and said I might count him as a permanent customer.

13:40It looked like the restaurant business might be pretty good. And because the miners usually paid in gold, she called her place El Dorado, the mythical city of gold. Within six weeks, Wilson made$700, the equivalent of two-year salary back in Missouri. And she didn't stop there. She bought some more timber and built a rickety boarding house near the tent, charging$25 a week for boarders. A general store came next, and then a second one. Wilson was soon running a small empire of businesses. And because so few banks existed in California, she would take the gold she received as payment, tie it up in small sacks, and toss them into her bedroom.

14:20At one point, she had$200 ,000 worth of gold just lying around, the equivalent of roughly$4 million today. And unlike most states, California gave married women the right to own businesses and property independently of their husbands. So the money was all Luzina's to keep. But even after all this success, Wilson decided she could do better still by doing something with all her languishing gold. So she became a banker, lending money out at 10 % interest per month. And before long, she was one of the richest women in California. But of course, not all women who came to gold country became magnates like Wilson.

14:58But many still did quite well for themselves. Maids could charge$240 a month, ten times the rate they earned back east. Prostitution could be even more lucrative. Some of the workers in Northern California's brothels came from as far away as Paris, where they had been making$2 a night. In San Francisco, they could make up to$400 a night as high-end courtesans. Prostitutes in cities like San Francisco also faced far less harassment from law enforcement than they did elsewhere. The entire state still had just a few marshals, sheriffs, and police officers, and those that existed were often willing to look the other way.

15:34As Northern California's largest city, San Francisco was the main hub for all commerce surrounding the mines and the many vices and excesses that came with it. But as San Francisco matured in the 1850s, the city began to attract a new type of person, one not seeking a quick windfall from the mines, but success in more established, respectable businesses. A growing number of ex-miners were also settling down to do steadier work. As a result, a more conventional, civic-minded attitude took hold in San Francisco. And these new, respectable types decided they didn't much like the unruly miners and hustlers who'd made the city in the first place.

16:12But the rough and tumble crowd that had built San Francisco was not about to leave without a fight.

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18:06carried their own bags. But despite the flood of people and the booming local economy, many considered San Francisco a temporary stop. Most miners and merchants didn't intend on staying long-term. They hoped to amass a quick fortune and move on. Because of this, there was a lack of investment in long-term infrastructure. Streets were unpaved and often became mud pits. Buildings were erected seemingly overnight with sometimes questionable materials. Sign painter Lyman Bradley recalled passing an empty lot on one block, then returning 48 hours later to find that a full-fledged store had been erected.

18:43Although he admired this can-do spirit, he also knew that such structures were built cheaply and could prove rickety and fire-prone. And indeed, this explosive and unregulated growth created dangerous conditions. On Christmas Eve 1849, a fire gutted San Francisco, and more devastating blazes erupted in the city frequently for the next few years. One such fire in May 1851 destroyed the home of Jessie Fremont, the senator's daughter who traveled through Panama alone with her young daughter to reach the West Coast. After arriving in California, Fremont had pushed her explorer husband, John, into politics.

19:22He became one of California's first two senators. People admired John, but Jessie was widely considered to be the brains of the family. John's long trips to Washington meant that Jesse was often left home alone with three children. One night, she awoke to fire alarm bells and narrowly escaped her house before the flames consumed it. As she watched it burn, she reflected that all the wealth and power in the world couldn't protect her family from disasters like this. Unfortunately, San Francisco's leaders ignored any lessons from the repeated fires. Building codes didn't change, and after each blaze, people continued to throw up rickety, fire-prone buildings.

20:02But even when San Francisco wasn't burning, it was developing a reputation as the wildest town in America, full of dance halls, brothels, and gambling parlors. As one local preacher ruefully noted, not a single man there seemed particularly anxious to go to heaven. Men drank heavily and gambled away fortunes on a single throw of dice. Women brazenly smoked cigars. And many people slept in saloons at night, passing out under tables because they had nowhere else to go. Crime was rampant. Robberies, assaults, and murders. Many locals suspected that some of San Francisco's repeated fires were started on purpose by gangs who then looted homes in the chaotic aftermath.

20:45But as the population of San Francisco continued to swell in the 1850s, some residents decided that the city had potential far beyond its early identity as a ramshackle boomtown. The weather was mild, and the steep hills offered sweeping views of the bay from seemingly every vantage point. Perhaps this was a city worth investing in. So over the course of the gold rush, a growing number of people got out of mining and settled down to open shops, restaurants, theaters, and bookstores. Some ran for local office, and they all began to form a more sober, respectable class of residents. But increasingly, those respectable folk began to resent the unsavory types, setting the stage for a clash that would determine the city's future.

21:32Imagine it's a winter night in January 1852. You're a local madam running a brothel near the docks in San Francisco. It's Saturday night, and a band of musicians is playing in the corner of your main parlor. You circulate with a bottle of whiskey in your hand, refreshing drinks and chatting with clients and the girls. Yours may not be the fanciest cat house in town, but you don't see any shame in your line of work. You built yourself up from nothing after leaving your alcoholic husband in Florida last year. Your girls get hot meals every day, and you don't tolerate abusive clients. But you frown when you hear someone pounding on the front door.

22:11All the regulars know to just walk right in, so this might be trouble. You set the bottle down on the bar, and walk over to answer the door. Yeah, can I help you? Are you the owner, ma 'am? A man with long, silvery hair stands in the doorway. You vaguely recognize him, but it's been ages. As far as you can recall, he's a police officer and a former client. Well, lovely to see you, Sergeant. Please come on in. He shoves past you and enters the small foyer, then flashes a badge. I'm not a sergeant anymore. I'm a U.S. marshal now. Well, Marshall or not, I appreciate you wiping your boots before you walk on my carpet.

22:51Ma 'am, you're about to have a lot bigger problems than a dirty carpet. I'm shutting the whole place down. You have no right to do that. Besides, why would you want to do that? I seem to recall you enjoying this place. Not anymore, ma 'am. I've been born again, and I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. And it's my duty and my job to uphold federal law, including statutes against prostitution. So now, please, go tell everyone to clear out. No, no, no, you can't just shut me down like that. Where will my girls go? That is not my problem. Oh, you dirty hypocrite. No, no, no, you just get out. Get right out of my house.

23:27The man goes red-faced, and his features twist into a sneer. Well, ma 'am, I've given you the chance to do this quietly. But now I guess we'll just have to do it my way. He stomps over to the door and yells out into the night. You realize he's summoning other officers. You run to the door and try to push the marshal out and lock it. He grabs you and slams you against the wall. Before you know it, a dozen other marshals are storming past you into the parlor. The room erupts in chaos as they begin grabbing your girls and your clients, trying to arrest everyone. It's a full-on raid, and all you can do is watch as they tear your business apart.

24:13Increasingly, new arrivals to San Francisco didn't appreciate the city's loose morals and fast ways. These newcomers intended to put down roots in the city, and to do that, they began clearing out tent neighborhoods and constructing brick buildings. They organized a proper police force and fire department and lobbied federal marshals to shut down brothels and other illegal businesses. Instead of saloons and gambling dens, they opened concert halls, ballrooms, and theaters. In the summer of 1851, they also formed an anti-crime organization called the Committee of Vigilance. The committee's charter promised that its members would safeguard the peace and good order of society and preserve the lives and property of the citizens of San Francisco.