Original subtitles

(exciting music)

- [Voiceover] The place for gold was all but gone.

It was getting harder and harder

to strike it rich on one's own.

Fortunes had been won for some men

but for many others, a life lived in luxury

from their findings in the gold fields

remained an illusive dream.

Instead, what many of these Americans found

was a new life in the virgin state of California.

It was not what they initially set out to find,

but it was one claim that no one could take from them.

An event like the California Gold Rush

doesn't just end overnight.

There's no shut off switch,

no running out of the clock.

By 1858, the intensity

of California's gold fever was dwindling.

There were still large finds being discovered,

like the Dogtown Nugget

but discoveries such as this

were becoming fewer and farther between.

New and unexpected discoveries for these argonauts

were resting on the horizon.

- [Voiceover] There was no Pacific Railroad

in those fine times 10 or 12 years ago.

Not a single rail of it.

I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months.

I had no thoughts of staying longer than that.

I meant to see all I could that was new and strange

and then hurry home to business.

Now I little thought I would not see the end

of that three-month pleasure excursion

for six or seven uncommonly long years.

Mark Twain, "Roughing It".

- [Voiceover] In the year 1859,

it was made public that there was a discovery

of a lode of silver ore under the eastern slope

of Mount Davidson, which was then in the Utah territory,

but would soon become the state of Nevada.

Once again, American's collectively buzzed

with the hope of potential wealth.

People from San Francisco,

along with those from all over the world,

create another rush to riches.

It's yet again the impetus which brings

about major changes in the country.

The discovery of silver

creates a rebirth of excitement

for miners in California who had given up

finding their wealth in the Sierra Nevadas

and it sparks light in the hearts

of the new prospectors throughout the states.

A young, former steamboat captain

by the name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens,

later known more widely by his nom de plume,

Mark Twain, along with his older brother, Orion,

are among the throngs who rushed

to this newfound discovery of silver in the west.

The nation has yet to build

the mighty Transcontinental Railroad

so the Clemens boys take a series of stagecoaches

out along their journey westward.

Samuel Clemens' time as a silver prospector

is fruitless and short-lived.

He quickly moves on to Virginia City

to become a reporter for the Nevada Territorial Enterprise.

The life of a prospector was one

that was ill-suited for Mr. Clemens from the start.

While his brief sojourn

into the field of Nevada silver mining

pays no financial dividends,

the entire western adventure creates

great fodder for the writer.

Clemens would have far greater success

in mining the depths of the human psyche

and its experience than he would looking for silver

in a hole in the side of a mountain.

The culmination of his experiences

with his brother Orion ultimately lead

to the creation of two famous pieces of literature.

Samuel Clemens recounts his calamities

and adventures out west in the book Roughing It,

and he gains much notoriety

from his adaptation of a folk tale

by adapting it into a short story called

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

In his heart, Clemens knew that his fate was not

to be won or lost in a mine shaft.

His purpose was more akin to one who observes the heavens

rather than one who buries his head underground.

For Samuel Clemens, his interest was not

in the distant planets but rather,

his subjects were human beings.

His works would speak about life and human condition.

Very early on, Sam Clemens knew that there was

a potency and a value in these great expansions

of the American people.

The California Gold Rush, and now the Silver Rush

were events that caused people

to create great upheaval in their lives.

While events such as these are catalysts

for migration and the formation of territories

into states within the United States,

there are some things that change

at a more glacial pace.

The prejudices and bigotry of men and women

are vile traits that are not easy to escape the grasp of.

They cling to the human spirit

and inhibit the progress of mankind.

One step in the direction of change was travel.

The great migration, which was the California Gold Rush,

brought thousands of people

into vast, uncharted territories.

These people never envisioned leaving their homes

until the promise of quick riches reached

the thresholds of their doorsteps.

It would not be farfetched to assume

that for most of these argonauts,

their goals within the confines

of the Gold Rush were myopic.

There was no careful thought

as to the people that were indigenous to the lands

that they'd be traveling through to reach the gold.

There was no care taken to preserve the land

from which the precious gold was extracted.

There were no means, only the desired hand.

Despite all this lack of foresight and personal reflection,

the Gold Rush is a subconscious stimulant

for change in the American people.

The movement of such vast amounts of people

away from their homes

inevitably forces many of these Americans

to encounter people and places

they would have never otherwise encountered

in their normal lives.

- [Voiceover] Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry

and narrow-mindedness and many of our people

need it sorely on these accounts.

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things

cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner

of the earth all one's lifetime.

Mark Twain.

- [Voiceover] It would take generations

for substantive change to occur

in the collective psyche of the American people,

in regard to those who were seen as foreigners

or those simply who had a different skin tone.

But the Gold Rush and the Silver Rush

pushed all these diverse ethnicities of people

together in such a way that would never have happened

if not for these major events.

Cities like San Francisco and Virginia City

had populations that were great amalgamations

of human beings.

The initial discovery of silver, which drew the Clemens boys

and thousands others out west

became known as the Comstock Lode.

The facts behind the discovery of the Comstock Lode,

as it came to be named, are still foggy at best.

What is known is that the brothers Ethan Allen Grosh

and Hosea Ballou Grosh established a cabin in the area

to seek out potential veins of gold and silver.

They were veterans of the California Gold Rush,

trained minerologists and sons of a Pennsylvania clergyman.

In 1857, Hosea died of sepsis

from a pickaxe injury to his foot.

The remaining brother, Ethan,

along with an associate named Richard Maurice,

set out for California with gold and silver samples

and maps of the claim from where the samples had been taken.

They left Henry Comstock, an uneducated sheepherder

and prospector with the charge of caring

for the cabin in their absence.

Inside the cabin was a locked chest

that contained both silver and gold ore samples

and papers documenting the brothers' discovery.

The duo never completed their journey to California.

They faced hardship after hardship along the way.

Both men lost limbs as a result of frostbite

while crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Ethan Allen Grosh died on December 19, 1857.

Richard Maurice Bucke survived the ordeal

but once he recovered from his wounds,

he chose instead to return home to Canada

instead of heading back to the claim.

When Henry Comstock learned

of the deaths of Ethan and Richard,

he immediately took for his own their cabin

and the chest containing the samples.

Since he was an uneducated man

and could not read the documents

that were left with the samples,

he gave them little credence and simply discarded them.

The men had not shared with Comstock

the location of their find

so he set out to find it and claim it for his own.

His life may have been quite a bit different

if he could have read these documents.

The papers that were in that chest are lost to history

but they may have led Henry Comstock

right to the motherlode.

Without knowing exactly

where the Grosh brothers made their finds,

Henry knew the fertile ground was still unclaimed.

He would hear of a discovery on Gold Hill

and set up a claim right beside it.

His efforts there brought him meager results.

There was nothing of any substance that he found.

On another occasion, in the spring of 1859,

Comstock caught wind of yet another find by two miners

by the names of Patrick McLaughlin and Peter O'Riley.

These men had moved to the head of Six Mile Canyon

after finding almost every other spot worth digging

was already claimed.

They were about to give up hope and move on

when they discovered at the bottom

of one of the holes they used to fill their rocker with,

that the water contained a layer of rich, black sand.

The black sand was concentrate

from a vein higher up the hill.

Upon hearing of their discovery,

Comstock immediately jumped in

and insinuated himself into the situation,

declaring that he had already laid a claim

to this very spot for grazing purposes.

Henry was unhappy with the results

coming out of the claim he was currently working

and being the bold and brazen braggart that he was,

Comstock made threats toward the men,

if they did not make him a partner in the find.

His baseless yet bold move worked

and the men cut him in to their claim as a partner.

This pattern of appropriating and inserting himself

into other's hardworked endeavors

with little more than loud, empty claims

would run throughout the life of Henry Comstock.

Comstock would eventually end up selling his shares

of all the mines in which he was a partner.

While he sold his shares for thousands of dollars,

the amount he made was a mere fraction

of what was in the lode that came to bear his name.

He, along with the other men

who initially held ownership of the mines,

sold for two main reasons.

They believed that what would be harvested from the mines

would most likely be a modest sum at best,

like most other mines.

They also did not have the capital means nor the technology

to harvest the silver ore that was deep within the mine.

This was no placer gold that could be easily panned

or knocked out of some exposed outcropping.

This metal would take a more advanced approach to obtain.

In Henry's case, there was a third reason

for his selling of his shares.

He was a man who held little to no foresight in his life

or in his business dealings.

He wanted to get rich quick

and he wanted to do it with as little effort as possible.

Henry Comstock would use his money

to open a few general stores in Virginia City,

but having no education nor inherent business sense,

he soon lost everything.

He would spend some time prospecting

in Idaho and then in Montana,

each time having no success in his endeavors.

Some years later near Bozeman, Montana,

he would end his life with a pistol,

having never truly struck it rich.

- [Voiceover] The time for compromise is now past

and the South is determined to maintain her position

and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder

and feel Southern steel.

Jefferson Davis.

- [Voiceover] The coming years would see the election

of a tall, lanky young Illinois senator

by the name of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency.

His tenure as president of the United States

is arguably one of, if not the most important

and influential our nation has ever seen.

California voted largely Democratic in the 1860 election,

yet Abraham Lincoln managed

to pull out a victory in the state.

This was accomplished less by his own abilities

and more so by a divide within the Democratic Party.

The California Democratic vote was split

between Northerner Douglas

and Southerner Breckenridge.

This division in the Democrats' voting

could be seen in other states across the nation,

which ultimately contributed

to the election of Abraham Lincoln.

His Republican Party presented a platform

that called for a Homestead Act,

which would make western land available to settlers

for $0.25 per acre.

The party promised not to meddle in the affairs

of the established states in regard to the issue of slavery

but it was opposed to slavery within the territories.

They hoped to at least stop the growth

of the cancer which was slavery.

With the discovery of gold in California

and now silver in what was soon to become Nevada,

there was a dire need to link the east to the west

with travel in a safer, more expedited manner.

Communication could take months.

These lapses kept the burgeoning nation

in a state of disconnect.

These issues, coupled with the tensions

bubbling in Washington and across the nation,

intensified efforts for the funding

and immediate construction of a transcontinental railroad,

which would accomplish this feat

and thus make communication and transport of goods

much more efficient and practical.

The ideals and values that the Republicans held

could be better implemented in the rapidly growing west

if these states and territories could feel

like they were more a part of the Union.

Rails and telegraph lines were the means by which

to make this a reality.

Traversing this great nation

was about to fundamentally change forever.

Paths through the wilderness

that were once cut by solitary trappers on horse or mule

then broadened by pioneers and wagons

were about to be set in iron rails.

From horses to carts and now to machines,

the nation was getting smaller and smaller,

even when it seemed that the north

and the south could not be any further apart.

Though Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party

narrowly won the electoral votes in California,

the southern-leaning sentiments that ran through the state

could not be denied.

California state legislature had even taken the step

of authorizing a secession within the state itself.

It would allow all of California

that was below the Missouri Compromise line

to detach itself from the rest of the state.

This southern portion was to be called Colorado

and slavery would be implemented there.

California Democrat Gwin even went so far as to predict

that if the south seceded from the Union,

all of California would follow suit and be with her.

Leland Stanford, a Republican and future founder

of the Ivy League school that would come to bear his name,

is elected as the governor of California

around the time of Lincoln's own election.

Even though Stanford is a Republican,

he's able to win his office.

He accomplishes this feat by running more so

on a Unionist platform

rather than approaching the office

from a strictly Republican standpoint.

Shortly after winning office,

he makes a point of sending

the newly appointed president a message via the telegraph.

This relatively new and revolutionary technology

was developed by Samuel Morse

as well as others in the 1840s.

Morse sends the first ever

electronically transmitted message,

"What had God wrought?"

between the US capital and Baltimore in 1844.

The message is sent using a series of dots and dashes

that relate to an alphanumeric code of his design

and shall bear his name.

The dots and dashes

are mechanically depressed onto the paper.

This technique would give way to ink soon enough.

The transcontinental telegraph sees its completion

just weeks after Stanford's election in 1861.

This new form of communication brings east and west together

in a way that was unheard of before.

Communication over vast stretches of our country

has now and forever become instantaneous.

News which could take weeks to get from point A to point B

now can be sent along metal wires with the blink of an eye.

The new technology puts the short-lived Pony Express boys

out of business a mere two days after its completion.

It would turn out to be a vital resource for the Union

and its communications throughout the Civil War.

Stanford's message to Lincoln read ...

- [Voiceover] Today, California is but a second's distance

from the national capital.

Her patriotism with electric current throbs responsive

to that of her sister states

and holds civil liberty and union above all price.

- [Voiceover] While this statement has Stanford pledging

all of California to the Union cause,

the reality of this young state's loyalty

was far less strident and far less complete

than Mr. Stanford would like Lincoln to believe.

It was wishful thinking at most

and exaggeration at best.

The issue of slavery has long been smoldering for years

within the political realms of the United States.

It was a point of contention

when the populous and the political parties

spent years locked in a cold war of words.

The South had threatened to secede from the Union

in 1856 if a Republican was elected to office.

They were prepared to hold the nation hostage

if they found themselves on the losing end

once the ballot boxes were emptied and counted.

Luckily, James Buchanan, a Democrat

beat out John C. Fremont and Millard Fillmore

and the South remained in the Union.

The attitudes in Washington were set

and half a nation can only be pacified but for so long

if it has its mind set on secession

and is only seeking any excuse to use as a match

to light the fire of its opposition.

That inevitable blaze would begin

four years later in 1860.

The nation would be torn asunder

with the election of the Republican from Illinois.

The South does in fact follow through

with its threat to secede,

which we can now see was inevitable.

It removes itself from the Union.

The nation was on the brink of open Civil War

and the United States was about to be turned on its head.

The issue of slavery could no longer be swept under the rug.

Many in California pledged to aid the Southern cause,

even if it was through indirect means.

Abraham Lincoln had only carried the state of California

because the two Democratic candidates,

Breckenridge and Douglas split the vote,

leaving enough for Lincoln to pick up

that state's electoral votes.

This was something that happened in other states as well

and would aid in his victory.

California could not be allowed to become a slave state.

The North could not let it fall

under the sway of the Confederate states.

While politically and ideologically,

the North and the South could not be any further apart

and the United States was about to be embroiled

in the bloodies conflict it would ever see on its own soil,

plans to create a transcontinental railway system

that would connect the east and the west

were already under way.

It was a tumultuous time

but there were those who still had their eyes

set on the decades to come.

The future was a railway system

that could link the eastern half of the United States

with the frontier out west.

While Leland Stanford's telegram to Lincoln

speaking of California's fervor to stand

with the North and the Union was a delicate piece

of political exaggeration to say the least,

the North still had a card to play

that would persuade this new state

to hold fast with the Union,

a card that was strong enough

to dissuade them from their Confederate leanings.

It was a promise of the Transcontinental Railroad.

With the Democrats willfully removing themselves

from the Union of the United States,

there was no longer one of the major sticking points

holding up construction of the railroad.

Two questions remained.

One, what course should it take?

And two, where should the eastern

starting point be located?

The Lincoln administration leverages its power

and threatens to keep the construction

of this railroad from California

if they should secede from the Union

or help in the aid of the South cause

by more subversive measures.

It is by far in California's best interest

to have such a railroad system built

as they start to see agriculture begin to swell

and become the most sustainable and profitable

means by which to make a living in the state.

- [Voiceover] The necessity that now exists

for constructing lines of railroad

and telegraphic communication

between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent

is no longer a question for argument.

It is conceded by everyone.

In order to maintain our present position

on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy

and direct means of intercourse

than is at present afforded by the route

through the possessions of a foreign power.

Select committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph.

- [Voiceover] Before tempers in the North and South

had reached their boiling points,

there was much planning and debate

in regards to the starting point

for a transcontinental railroad

and the route that it would take

to make the journey out to the Pacific Ocean.

From the years of 1853 through 1855, the United States,

through an appropriation in the War Department,

carried out a series of surveys

under the guidance of the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis.

The same Jefferson Davis who would soon aid

in the secession of the South

and become the president of the Confederacy.

The surveys were voluminous in nature

and they covered the wildlife, geography,

and the native peoples living in the west.

The information that the Pacific Railroads surveys amassed,

covered over 400 thousand square miles

of the western territory.

The findings were published in 1861

but by now, the country was entangled in civil war.

This most unfortunate event did however,

eliminate the southern political objections

as to where the railway should begin.

With the South seceded from the Union,

this allowed Abraham Lincoln to begin

the lengthy and costly construction

in the location of his choosing.

- [Voiceover] The project for constuction

of a great railroad through the United States

of America, connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean

has been an agitation for over 15 years.

It is the most magnificent project ever conceived.

Theodore Judah.

- [Voiceover] He was a man obsessed,

a man of one vision, and that's exactly what was needed.

The construction of a transcontinental railroad

was going to be a feat that required

massive amounts of money, industry, manual labor,

ingenuity, and most importantly tenacity.

Theodore Judah was a railroad and civil engineer

who, once fixed on the idea of building a railroad

that married the west to the east,

could not be shaken from that notion.

Crazy Judah, as he was sometimes called,

because of his singlemindedness in regard

to building a railway through the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

had a friend who was a storekeeper

by the name of Daniel Strong.

Strong invites Judah on a two-day trek

up into the Sierras to a spot

where he believes a railroad could pass.

In many places in the Sierra Nevada,

there is a double summit.

Once you reach the apex of the first, there's a valley below

and then another mountain ridge opposite you.

But in this particular location

that Daniel Strong had taken Judah to,

there's only one summit.

This spot just so happens to be the path

where the Donner Party passed.

Judah sees the engineering importance of this location

and sees that this is the route

through which a railroad can make it out

to Virginia City, to the Comstock Lode, and beyond.

Judah needed money though.

He drew up papers for the Central Pacific Railroad Company

and was able to convince merchants

to help fund the project.

Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins,

Charles Crocker, and Leland Stanford,

while these men were well off businessmen,

they by no means had the gargantuan amount of capital

that was needed to construct

the entirety of the railroad system.

Judah convinced them and the men gave him

just enough money to conduct surveys.

Once completing his surveys in October of 1861,

Judah knew that it was time

to seek out federal authorization

and convince the government to back this endeavor.

He headed east.

In 1862, Congress passes the Pacific Railway Act.

The Union Pacific Railroad Company

is commissioned to lay railroad track

along with telegraph lines westward

starting at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The Central Pacific Railway Company

would build track and telegraph lines

eastward from the eventual terminus of the railway,

Sacramento, California.

The two companies would meet in Promontory, Utah

in May of 1869, where the final spike was driven in

by none other than Leland Stanford.

The ceremony saw him drive the golden spike

into a tie made of California laurel.

The act was purely for show

but it symbolized the completion

of a great American undertaking.

Theodore Judah was not lucky enough

to live to see his great vision completed.

He passed away from Yellow Fever

on November 2, 1863,

while in Panama on a voyage with his wife.

They were on their way to New York City.

The purpose for their journey was to find backers

to help Judah buy out the Big Four,

Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins,

Charles Crocker, and Leland Stanford.

The men had been at odds

almost from the start of the railroad project.

Once they saw that the endeavor was in fact feasible,

they pushed Theodore Judah back

into the background whenever possible.

In the summer of 1863, they approached Judah,

still the chief engineer

of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, with an ultimatum.

Either he was to buy them out

or they would buy him out.

So his only recourse was to seek out others

to help him buy out the Big Four.

Who these potential partners could have been

is something lost to history.

The fever took him shortly after her reached New York.

Although he did not live to see the railway's completion,

he did help set in motion

a metaphorical union of the nation.

The railway companies would eventually

lay a total of 1,774 miles of track,

which followed a centrally located route.

The man in charge of deciding where that route

would begin in the east

was none other than the president, Abraham Lincoln.

His choice in Council Bluffs, Iowa

was like most all of Lincoln's political decisions,

a calculated one.

He knew that the route across Nebraska

would be reasonably easy as well as inexpensive.

He also had old political favors to repay to those in Iowa.

He was indebted to them because many of the Iowa delegates

switched over to him during the 1860 election

after he'd been trailing William Henry Seward

in the first two ballots.

Placing the eastern terminus

for the transcontinental railroad

would serve as payment for their past favor.

The railroad would see its completion

but it did not come without compromise

and shrewd business decisions by many

who were involved in the process.

- [Voiceover] Not withstanding our precaution

not to be observed, as soon as we came back to the mill,

we noticed by the excitement of the working people

that we had been dogged out

and to complete our disappointment,

one of the Indians who had worked

at the goldmine in the neighborhood of La Paz

cried out in showing us some specimens picked up by himself.

Oro! Oro! Oro!

John Sutter.

- [Voiceover] The great migration and evolution of a nation

that was the California Gold Rush

cannot be distilled into a few words

or simple turn of phrase.

The event fundamentally changed

the shape of the United States,

the way its people thought

and the lives of an innumerable amount

of Americans and native inhabitants.

This one event was comprised of thousands upon thousands

of smaller personal experiences and undertakings,

many of them forever lost to history.

These small sacrifices are the drops of water

that make up the river that rushes onward.

Lives of common men and women and children

were shaped around the discovery of gold.

Men were made and remade and families torn apart

by the strains of the California Gold Rush.

People made large sweeping life changes overnight,

all for the promise of hope

and a chance at a better tomorrow.

Although sometimes misguided,

the spirit of the American rings true in this notion.

The American spirit cannot be shaken

of the hope of better days on the horizon,

of a chance to take one's own life into one's hands

and craft it into something bigger, brighter, and better.

It is one of the prevailing reasons

why people have always been drawn to its shores.

The United States of America has always been

a symbol of hope and a large part of it

was due to the California Gold Rush.

It set in motion great movements

of people from around the world.

They poured into California,

clamoring into the gold fields

and not only carving out the land

but also a place in the state and the nation

many would adopt and call their home.

Without the Gold Rush,

the makeup of California's cultural diversity

is not what it is today.

The argonauts, in their search for gold

and the potential that the mountains held

forever shaped California's landscape

for better or for worse.

The effects of the miners' actions can still be seen today.

It also served as a catalyst for bridging

the transportation and communication gaps

that the east had with the west.

California began as a distant and abstract dream

to many back east.

It was some far-flung place that some had gone to

and few had come back from

but by the end of the Civil War,

the Sierra Nevada Mountains

could be seen in a matter of days

and a telegram could be sent in a matter of moments.

The Gold Rush of California would serve

as a template for other rushes to riches

in various parts of the world that would follow.

People now knew what signs to look for

when they were in search of gold.

They knew what the rock formations looked like

and with that knowledge, they could spot it again.

There were technological advancements made

during the gold and silver rushes in America

that made digging deeper for the ore a possibility.

What began as an endeavor mostly relying on luck

and a simple plan and rudimentary tools such as a pan

and the natural flow of water

had now evolved into a science.

The Klondike and Australian gold rushes

would see many parallels in the actions that were taken

by those hasty people who swept in and put steel to stone.

Most of those people were only concerned

with what they could take from the land for themselves.

The California rush was not unique

when it came to mankind's disregard

to the native inhabitants

and the balance of the natural environment.

Man's greed knows no borders and no boundaries.

For all the good that these discoveries bring,

there was a dark element to their disturbances

of the natural order and those who lived not on the land

but in harmony with it.

The question will always remain.

What if they had left well enough alone?

America's lofty and at times misguided dream

of Manifest Destiny began with Meriwether Lewis

and William Clark's core of discovery.

Thomas Jefferson sent them

on a great expedition of good will and adventure.

The information and specimens

that they gathered and returned with

were the first that would move the hearts of Americans.

Soon after, eager pioneers headed westward

in their wagons on the Oregon Trail.

They sought out a new life

and desired to carve a path

through the vast expanses of the west,

leaving broken wheels, cast iron skillets

and bones along the way.

Americans kept moving west,

even if it meant leaving everything

that they once knew behind.

The sun may set in the west

but Americans have always seen it

as a place where a new day begins.

When James Marshall took a routine survey

of the budding mill that he was working on

in the American River and happened upon

something that glittered in the water,

he could not have imagined just how important

that moment in his life would be

and what it would mean for history.

Such great events often start with a whisper

and in this case, it started with one man's footsteps

pushing through the current of the American River.

The explosion of people that followed

would accelerate American expansion

in a rate that it had never seen before.

The country was meant to be tamed

and the gold in the ground was there for the taking.

Silver would come next

and the need for a more efficient

means of communication and travel

could no longer be ignored.

The telegram and the Transcontinental Railroad

were the last great expansions

and expressions of Manifest Destiny.

Lewis and Clark were given the charge

of locating the Northwest Passage.

Their journey was a successful one in many regards

but no such passage really existed.

Although in the end,

Americans built their own Northwest Passage in a way.

They constructed a railway across a desert of barren land,

land that was unoccupied by anyone of significance

in the eyes of those who did not deem the indigenous people,

the American Indian, of any worth.

The Civil War tore the nation apart

and thousands of Americans would sacrifice their lives

for the Union and the Confederacy

before the healing process could begin.

The construction of the railway system

would truly bring the established states

and the budding new ones out west together

in a way that was impossible before.

The West became a place that could be reached

in a matter of days, not months.

It was real now.

Commerce and communication between the coasts

became the most efficient it had ever been

and the rails were a huge leap forward

in the eventual mobilization of the nation.

So much was primed to happen,

so much change ready to occur.

The undercurrents of a nation

were about to sweep so many away on a great journey

and it all began

on an ordinary January morning in 1848.

The United States would soon see

a monumental movement of people

and great technological advancement,

all from the subtle glimmer of a few flakes of metal

in the American River.

James W. Marshall began his morning

with a routine that so many of us

experience in our own daily lives.

He was out walking the river, doing his job.

Perhaps he noticed the sound

of the breeze in the trees.

Perhaps he whistled a song.

Little did he know that an entire nation

was forever changed that morning.

That discovery quite possibly changed the world.

It was a morning where the only sound that could be heard

was the wind through the branches

and water running over stone.

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