"And he looks down where the soil has been dug and there's a sparkle, and there's a glint in the morning light, and he…"

"The gold rush changed California, it changed the whole west, and it changed America's sense of itself because for the…"

"The tremendous success of that summer of 1848 spread by way of letters and government reports. The President in his S…"

"He is a farmer. He lives a simple life. He's pretty well educated. He's read Shakespeare, he's read Wordsworth. His w…"

"The men who traveled to California in the Gold Rush years had a conscious sense of the need to organize. There are ru…"

"So at the point where you make the choice, there is this moment where scores of men stand around, and they debate and…"

"But when you get to the other side of the Sierra Nevada, you don't see the green of the Sacramento Valley, you see th…"

"What they had expected was the image that they had received in November, December of 1848, and the story of digging u…"

"You're working in freezing water up to your waist for hours at a time.You're reaching down, moving rocks, bringing in…"

"And they walk into these great big places, and there's excitement, and there's hope, and there's a sense of sin. 'Mot…"