On the Trail to the California Gold Rush

Lured by "the astonishing accounts of the vast deposits of gold in California," Alonzo Delano (1806-74) of Ottawa, Illinois, bid farewell to his wife and children and joined the rush to El Dorado. For the next five months-April to early September 1849-he persevered in writing his remarkably detailed diary, recounting his experiences among the more than thirty thousand goldseekers representing all thirty states who struggled across half of the continent to California's "gold fields." With ea...