When gold was discovered in California in 1848, hundreds of thousands rushed west in one of the largest migrations in history. But while others chased fortune in the dirt, Samuel Brannan made himself the richest man in California. He understood something others didn’t: the real gold wasn’t in the ground. It was in the people chasing it.
This is the story of the Gold Rush, the rise and fall of its most opportunistic architect, and how greed helped build (and scar) America forever.
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