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Ch. 2: Gold Fever

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20 Gold Rush Album
The luxury of a sea voyage was de­nied the many families who were driven by poverty or restlessness to seek with bag, baggage and children this latest of promised lands.
For these, and most people departing from the interior states, the overland trails led to the golden country.
Down the rivers to the Mississippi by steamboat (left) and then up the Missouri to the jumping-off places-Kansas, Weston, St. Joseph, Council Bluffs-
—then over the great plains to the South Pass of the Rocky Moun­tains.
Or, by the way the returned soldiers from the War with Mexi­co preferred: the trail that the traders had broken to Santa Fe, and Kearny's route westward along the Gila River.
Either way, the wild loneliness of the prairies would swallow them up. But most of them knew the prairies only in pictures like the one right.
On every overland trail the journey would be made in prairie wagons, their bodies built of well-seasoned lumber, caulked like a ship for fording the num­berless streams. Oxen were best to draw them. Carry a rifle, knife and pistol— 125 pounds of flour a man, 50 pounds of bacon—plenty of horse-shoe nails-be sure the tires could be loosened and tightened—take it easy on the plains-be ready for the Sierra—or the desert!
Ch. 2: Gold Fever Page of 246 Ch. 2: Gold Fever
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