(way) After the Gold Rush
“I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another.” – James Marshall
Apparently (on a January 24th in 1848) Marshall and his crew were supposed to be building a sawmill (for John Sutter) but kept discovering these pesky gold nuggets. Something I never knew from my comic book like grasp on the subject was that both Sutter and Marshall tried to cover the whole thing up.
They might have gotten away with it had wily Sam Brannan not first bought up all the pickaxes, shovels and pans in the sleepy city of San Francisco and then began to holler about gold while holding up a bottle of gold dust (and presumably fingering his handlebar mustache which was standard issue villain wear at the time I think). The rest, is history and if you are interested, you can learn much, much more from All About the Gold Rush.
The above photo by `Bobesh/Pete is titled Moonlight of Gold and shows the moon rising from the Tasman Sea, Central Coast, Australia. Like most of the photographers I feature here, he has tons more great photos for your viewing pleasure if you would only click.
