For eons, little streams drained down from the High Sierra in California. At first the streams were only known to Native Americans. Later, Spaniards and Mexicans discovered them. Then came the hardy hunters and trappers looking for beaver, muskrat, and otter. The mountain men loved the sweet, clean waters, especially after crossing California's parched desert.

Then in the late 1840s the calm was shattered by one of the greatest mass adventures of all times. The event was triggered by a oneparagraph item in a San Francisco newspaper called the Californian . Printed on March 15, 1848, the article read:

GOLD MINE FOUND—In the newly made raceway of the saw-mill recently erected by Captain Sutter, on the American fork, gold had been found in considerable quantities. One person brought thirty dollars worth to New Helvetica, gathered in a short time. California, no doubt, is rich.

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