Book 1 | Revolt in Paradise | |
I | The Time, the Place, the Cast | 3 |
II | One Man Wants a Wilderness ... | 4 |
III | A Good Soldier Is Embarrassed | 8 |
IV | Heroic Frauds, or None at All | 11 |
V | An Honest Scoundrel Thickens the Plot | 15 |
VI | The Time of Action Begins | 18 |
Book 2 | The Opening of a Land | |
I | John Sutter Takes the Big Plunge | 25 |
II | "The state of society is exceedingly loose" | 29 |
III | "The difficulty of coming here is imaginary" | 32 |
IV | Schoolteacher Bidwell Lands in Jail | 37 |
V | A Fort Plays Host | 40 |
VI | The Scene Shifts to Colorado, "a Legal Fiction" | 42 |
VII | "There is no man to whom I owe as much as Fremont" | 46 |
VIII | Commodore Jones Goes out on a Yardarm | 48 |
IX | [pound]1,000,000 to Drive out the Americans | 51 |
X | Wagons? Impossible! | 54 |
XI | The Men Match the Mountains | 57 |
XII | Larkin Becomes Consul with a Gold-headed Cane | 60 |
XIII | Seed Wheat of the Western Migration | 64 |
XIV | A Democratic Army, Out for No Good | 68 |
XV | The Rugged Individualist Train | 73 |
XVI | "Why is Captain Fremont here?" | 77 |
XVII | Confidential Agent | 82 |
XVIII | Paradise Grows a Trifle Ugly | 88 |
XIX | "There's that damned flag again!" | 94 |
XX | Armed Conflict | 98 |
XXI | The Furies Pour Their Pent-up Vengeance | 104 |
XXII | "It is enough. This is the right place." | 116 |
XXIII | A Curse Is Removed, San Francisco Is Born | 123 |
XXIV | "It's GOLD!" | 128 |
Book 3 | Color in a Country | |
I | "A frenzy seized my soul" | 133 |
II | It's as Easy to Find Gold as Steal It | 138 |
III | What Gambler Ever Refused to Play? | 143 |
IV | Dedicated Saints | 148 |
V | Give Colorado Back to the Indians | 151 |
VI | The Men Do Not Match the Mountains | 152 |
VII | "How do we get to the gold?" | 158 |
VIII | New States for the Union | 164 |
IX | Death Valley Earns Its Name | 170 |
X | Nevada and Colorado Show Their Color | 176 |
XI | Gold and Mormonism Settle a Land | 181 |
XII | Rise of the Vigilantes | 185 |
XIII | The Glory of Polygamy | 189 |
XIV | Enterprising and Excitable Young Men | 193 |
XV | For Los Angeles, Neither Boom Nor Bust | 200 |
XVI | "Don't shoot, I am unarmed!" | 204 |
XVII | "You have struck it, boys!" | 209 |
XVIII | The Mountain Meadows Massacre | 217 |
XIX | "There is gold in Colorado. We saw it ourselves!" | 225 |
Book 4 | The Building of a Civilization | |
I | Pike's Peak or Bust! | 235 |
II | "Crazy" Judah and the Big Four | 243 |
III | The Civil War Makes Its Way West | 249 |
IV | The Comstock Has as Many Troubles as It Has Prospectors | 254 |
V | You Have to Get Up Early to Beat Brigham Young | 261 |
VI | Inside the "Twin Relic of Barbarism" | 270 |
VII | ... With Presses Ready at the Drop of a Frontier | 277 |
VIII | "They built the Great Wall of China, didn't they?" | 283 |
IX | The Saturnalia of Virginia City | 290 |
X | Billy Ralston's "crackling, pleasure-loving town" | 298 |
XI | Manana Land Gets Itself Subdivided | 305 |
XII | The Sweatbox of Ralston's Ring | 312 |
XIII | The Saints War with the Gentile Merchants | 324 |
XIV | It Is Hard for a Land to Be Born | 333 |
XV | A Polished Laurel Tie, and a Solid Gold Spike | 347 |
Book 5 | Giants Stalk the Land | |
I | The Tiger and the Octopus | 355 |
II | Four Miles to the Mineral Belt | 366 |
III | Four Irishmen Become Silver Kings | 373 |
IV | A Run on the Bank | 380 |
V | Nevada Cycle of Life and Death | 389 |
VI | "Only force can settle the Mormon problem" | 399 |
VII | For Brigham Young, Time Runs Out | 412 |
VIII | Colorado Is a Character | 424 |
IX | "Come provided with a pair of navy revolvers" | 435 |
X | Baby Doe Finds H.A.W. Tabor | 442 |
XI | The Climate Is Perfection ... | 450 |
XII | They suffered; they wept; sometimes they died ... | 455 |
Book 6 | An Era Ends, a New Story Begins | |
I | Southern California Has Its Eighty-Seveners | 469 |
II | The Southern Pacific Loses Its Fence | 477 |
III | "This sure is some Cripple Creek!" | 481 |
IV | H.A.W. Tabor Completes His Cycle | 491 |
V | The Saints Come to Judgment Day | 497 |
VI | Utah, Forty-fifth State | 504 |
VII | The Rose of Sharon | 512 |
VIII | The Far West Sits for Its Portrait | 519 |
IX | The Time, the Place, the Cast | 526 |
| Acknowledgments and Bibliography | 527 |
| Source of Quotations | 537 |
| Index | 551 |