Transcripts For CSPAN3 California Gold Rush Fires And Floods 20170701

The present. He was born in nevada county. He is the son and grandson of hard rock gold miners. The oregon california trails association and National Historical society selected him as the educator of the year. He is the author of distant horizon, documents of the 19th century american west, coeditor of the illuminated landscape, a and theevada anthology, awardwinning sierra stories, tales of schemers, dreamers, which can find in our store tonight. His most recent books he will talk about tonight, which are goldrush stories, which was published this year. It is amazing. Members tonight get 20 off the book, so if you do not have a copy of them, i suggest you grab them, get them signed by gary and the value will skyrocket afterwards. [laughter] if you went a more complete biography and to love more, you can go on his website, garynoy. Com. He is a lovely person. Such a treat. His stories and the way he tells them are compelling. Think of your questions because there will be a q and a portion. Use this microphone in the middle in the alleyway. Recordinghere tonight for American History television, so it is important you go to the microphone to ask the question. Think of good ones while you listen to the presentation and now i will handed over. Thank you, gary. [applause] noy thank you for that lovely introduction. I am delighted to be here. I spoke here once before a few years back, and i was so thrilled when i was asked to return. I am here to tell you some stories. You want to hear some stories . Ok, well, lets take a trip back in time, the historical journey to a remarkable moment, the California Gold rush. There is a wealth of stories emanating from this event and they are under our feet, particularly in San Francisco. Stories that are tantalizingly close in time and an attitude. The stories i want to tell you on the tales and accounts of the participants, tales of aspiration, this government and determination, frustration and loss, and despair. We had a vision of the California Gold rush and this painting reflects this. When we think about the 49ers in the goldrushers, often times you think of an image of someone in a red flannel shirts, his hands tucked into boots, with a pick and shovel and seemingly everyone of them came from alabama with a banjo on their knee. It was more complicated than that. We have this vision of this adventure, but this famous painting, sunday morning in the mines, really reflects two important games in the California Gold rush. One is impermanence and the others contradiction. This painting shows this rollicking, rather drunken dance, and the piety of those involved. That is part of this story. It was very complicated. It was an enormous enterprise. It was not just an independent minor. With manyy complex moving parts. Wholesale changes in economics, politics and culture. This was a time period that embodied elements of whimsy and anticipation. There were enormous environmental impacts, leaving we still legacy which have to go. It was very complex when it came to how you got here. There were complexe transportation by foot and wagon, steamboat, even dog sleds for transporting passengers and mail. We also have in this very complex society that develops the beginnings of civil side he, civil society, and the development of ephemeral towns built on risktaking and adaptation. That was part of the gold rush legacy. Here we have San Francisco in 1848. Here we have San Francisco a few months later. Huge changes. Sacramento went from being, within six months, from a few dozen people to 10,000. Nevada city, close to where i was born in grass valley, in a matter of three months, went from 700 to 11,000. Huge, rapid changes. The participants were almost exclusively young, male, and unattached. They were not interested in putting down roots. They were temporary visitors, for the most part, adapting to the circumstances, reinventing themselves in a great adventure. They functioned as land pirates, essentially, plundering anything shiny. And then leaving. This temporary, Transitory Concept of the gold rush still has elements that affect us to this day. Women were rare. Only 8 of the total population in the California Gold rush was female. In the goldmining camps, it was much less, 3 or less. Many mining camps did not see women for months. One of the exhibits in the library after my talk tonight is the original publication of the dame shirley letters. Dame shirley wrote a series of letters in 1851. She expressed, dramatically and well, what it was like to be a woman in the gold fields. When she arrived, she was the first woman those miners had seen in six months. When she wrote about it in her letter, she said, when they look at me, i was a petticoated astonishment. First woman those miners had seen in six months. There were other groups here, too. The California Gold rush rapidly became the most complex, culturally diverse, socially diverse place on earth. Here, there were people from europe and south america and australia. There were africanamericans, chinese, native americans. Here, the contradictory part of the gold rush is really demonstrated because there were the sad, tragic, stereotypical accounts of groups. There were laws that band banned testimony by blacks against whites. There was a Supreme Court decision called the people v. Hall in which the chinese were not allowed to testify against whites. There was a whole slaughter against the native population. The first state of the state address by governor Peter Burnett said the policy towards the indians was a war of extermination. And yet, at the same time, there are stories galore in the California Gold rush record of people overcoming the stereotypes. They were still there, but there were stories of interactions between races and cultures in which the individuals were no longer just stereotypes, but neighbors and friends and partners. Thats all part of this mix, this extraordinary California Gold rush experience. It was also an event that was haunted by the specter of failure and danger. 80 of all miners failed. Death was a constant presence. In all of my research, i think the most startling statistic for me was that if you take all the people who came at the height of the gold rush, seven years or so after 1848, 20 of those who came died within six months of arrival. From disease and accidents, violence, and sadly, those who could not cope with the failure, which was common, suicide. There are sad stories of those who spent their last pennies to travel to this land of Golden Dreams only to die soon after arrival. Grim notes from the gold rush lore. It was, to say the least, a monumental gamble. The philosopher Henry David Thoreau said the gold rush was the worlds raffle. The greatest failure was not coming here to california and striking out, the great failure was not coming in the first place. You didnt see the elephant, to use the phrase at the time period. This was more than a resource treasure house. There was an uncontrollable providencefabled promising freedom and opportunity, and for some, and escape. There are many stories. What i would like to do is share with you a couple of these stories from this dazzling, perplexing, contradictory kaleidoscope known as the California Gold rush. They had many things to deal with, but one of the things they had to deal with was nature. Fire and flood. Thats what i would like to talk to you about tonight, how the gold rushers dealt with fire and flood. To do this, we need to hop in the time machine and go back to november 2, 1852. Sacramento has a population of about 15,000. It was vulnerable, as were most gold rush communities, to fire. Most of the buildings were hastily constructed, temporary structures reflecting sacramentos boomtown origins. November 2, 1852 is election day in sacramento. It has been a very contentious election. There has been accusations of voter fraud, of outside influence from people outside of our region, stories of electioneering that featured terrible, malicious namecalling. Does any of this sound familiar . [laughter] gary as a result of this election, there were some that were upset with the results. To demonstrate their displeasure, they started a fire. That is one story. But the actual story, most likely, is that in a shop in downtown sacramento, a worker carelessly knocked a candle into some chemicals, and it started a massive fire. Within three hours, this fire spread. The Sacramento Union said the fire was bearing its lurid fangs and enveloping the city in a sheet of fire. Within three hours, 90 of sacramento was reduced to smoking ruins. 90 . Shopkeeper Colin Huntington of the Central Pacific was busily fighting the flames with his life and not making much headway. Armed with wet blankets and sacks, the fires kept looking at kept licking at his feet. He got rid of his family, move them out of the way and he continued to fight it, but his eyes were seared, and he cannot ould not see for several days afterwards. But he was luckier than his neighbor, a young man who was caught in the fire and burnt to cinders. Lost,st six lives were more than 2500 buildings destroyed, property losses were conservatively estimated at 10 million, which would be about 500 million today. Sacramento, immediately began rebuilding. Even as the mountains of debris smoldered, and this was a characteristic of gold rush california, fire was common, but rebuilding was just as common. Here is sacramento after the fire. Within two months after the fire, these are buildings that have been rebuilt. Even as the town was smoldering, there were still new stores and hotels and deliveries and residences that sprang to life. By december 1852, just a month after the fire, sacramento is back in business. This was a pattern repeated throughout the age. The sacramento inferno was not the first, and certainly not the last, igniting the region. From the errors jeanette from genesis, buyer was a plague in gold rush california, and a fire was a plague in gold rush california, and a recurrent symbol of what the gold rush came to mean. A place where ruin could be followed by resurrection. San francisco, where we are, was repeatedly swept by fire. There were seven major fires within 18 months, all the way through june, 1851. As the flames were licking the hills on may 4, the San Francisco daily talked about the fire. It said the smoke and flames are descending from several squares of our city, as it were god of destruction descended into our midst, and was gorging himself upon the ruins of our city and doomed people. The city was not immune from fire. Virtually every mining camp and city was touched by this god of destruction. There were temporary structures of wood and canvas quickly constructed, and just as quickly dismantled to move on or by tragedy. And many towns, they had paid a horrible price in destruction and anxiety. Frequently, in order to deal with the Rapid Construction of towns, it was very common for mining camps San Francisco did this, too to pave their streets with wooden planks, basically carpeting the town in kindling. The towns paid a price for this. There were fireproof buildings that were constructed, made of brick. Basically, these fireproof brick buildings became ovens. There was much loss very rapidly. This is an intriguing image of this fire of may 4, 1851 in San Francisco. This was published for the french. Of all of the europeans that came to california, the french were the largest number. 30,000 french immigrated to california for the gold rush. 10 of the population of california was french. They have a longterm impact upon the development of gold rush culture. But this image was produced for a french audience. Intriguingly, and the caption, refers to this character in the front. There was a recurring character that became a branded name. He was a lawyer who had a reputation for impeccable honesty, that whatever he said, you could trust. So by using him as this character, they could describe what was happening in gold rush california, and people would accept it in france because of this connection. So this is him fleeing the flames of 1851. There were many, many who were affected by this fire. There was an author by the name of Frank Marriott who wrote a book called mountains and molehills, talking about fires, in part. He recounted this fire in San Francisco. He said, it started in a n upholstery store. The wind was blowing and increased to hurricane force. There were planked streets that went up in smoke. Ships at sea, 100 miles out in the ocean from San Francisco, could see the flames. Nearly 2000 houses were destroyed. 18 blocks of the Main Business district was destroyed. The burnt district was about a mile square. Marriott described the aftermath of this. I think this image reflects the attitude he talked about. He said, no conception can be formed of the grandeur of the scene. For at one time, the burning district was covered and one vast sheet of flame. When the excitement of such a night has passed by, one can scarcely recall the scene. The memories confused, and the recollection of the populace. The crash of fallen timbers, the yellows of the burned and injured, the clank of the fire breaks, the orders delivered through speaking trumppence, the maddened horses delivered from staples, the crowd forced back by the flames, tramples all before it, explosions of houses blown up by gunfire, showers of splinters that fall on every of brick thunder buildings as they fall, and the blinding glare of it ignited of ignited spirits. Amid the heat, flames that scorch the eyes. It falls on you in a shower of scalding steam. You throw your code away and help work the engine. In daylight, you plod home half blind, half scorched, hast done, half stunned and quite bewildered. From that time on, you never care to recall one half of the horrors you witnessed on that night, the night of may 3. This was a recurring pattern in the gold rush. You take nevada city. Massive expansion. More than 10,000 over a matter of months. So rapidly was this town built that there was a woman who owned a hotel in nevada city. She went into the woods to get some firewood. When she returned a few hours later, she had difficulty finding her hotel because so many buildings had been built in that several hour period. Extraordinary changes. In nevada city on march 1851, a careless resident started a pile of wood shavings on fire. Within two hours, the tinder like pine houses ignited and the fire raged over the town. The fire howled and moaned like a giant in the agony of pain, and buildings crashed and fell. Within hours, this city with a population of 11,000 had 9000 homeless. The city was rebuilt within a matter of weeks. In sonora in 1852, a fire broke out, which obliterated the mining camp in a matter of minutes. Within hours after the fire had stopped, sonora was filled with what was described as a buzzing, energized orchestra of construction. A scottish writer witnessed the fire and talked about something that happened repeatedly with gold rush fires. He said, people started building even as the ground was still hot, as the smoke was rising, and almost invariably, the first building built was the saloon. [laughter] gary invariably. He noted this. He said in our an hour or two after the town burnt down, the new saloon was in full operation. The same gamblers were sitting at the same tables, dealing to a crowd of bettors. The piano and violin which had been interrupted by the fire were now in livening the people in their distress. The barkeeper was as composed as ever, mixing cocktails for the thirsty throats of the millions. Fire was common. As it swept through these gold rush communities, it ignited something else. It ignited a sense of resilience. This is a human behavior, resilience in the face of tragedy. In the California Gold rush, it was amplified because everything happened so quickly, and everything was so concentrated. People felt it was their duty to prove that they could overcome difficulties. For people who had traveled for months with their last pennies to come to the field of Golden Dreams, who stood kneedeep in ice Cold Mountain waters s searching for an elusive flake, a little fire wasnt a big deal. They were resilient and tough, and rapid and their rising out of the fire like a phoenix. Very, very common. That wasnt the first thing, the only thing they had to deal with. They also had to deal with floods. This is a bit painful for me, speaking of someones house he was flooded twice by the massive flood. I live near auburn. That fire was not the only challenge the gold rushers faced. They were devastating floods. For this, we need to hop in the time machine again and go back to january 1, 1850. There, there is a couple, josiah senior and sarah royce, and their son josiah junior. I put him in there because he was one of the very first graduates of what was called the college of california and became the university of california, and became a prominent philosopher in the 19th century and taught at harvard for years. I am a child of grass valley. He was born in grass valley about 200 feet from where i was born. I always like to bring him into the story. His parents, josiah senior and sarah, had reached sacramento in a after eight months on a wagon 250 from iowa. They arrived on january 1 almost penniless. They found a spot to pitch their tents along the riverfront of the sacramento river. When they started for sacramento in april 1849, Sacramento City had four houses and 12 inhabitants, other than sutters fort. By the time they arrived, there were 13,000 people. On the day they arrived, the sky darkened with a vengeance. Within a day or two, the revision rocketing the city began in those days to swell. The old settlers, the people who had been there six months, said nothing to worry about. It rains all the time, no problem, but then it started raining again. Rainn a week, 13 inches of had fallen, and then it got worse. The storm hit with a brutal vengeance after that point. The rain was coming down in sheets. World his wife. About 100 yards away of building was under construction that had three stories. They gathered up what the longings they had. 100 raced to this building miles away. Sarah were called when she reached the structure she could hear the gurgling as the water found its way into crevices. 100 people were gathered together in the second story, some in the third. Continued to rain and rain and rain. From thees were fished flooded thoroughfares. The total number of dead and was never determined. Everywhere, there was raw sewage, putrid animal corpses, rotted produce. Teenager sally hester wrote at ,he time in her diary, she said i wish i was back in indiana because snakes are plenty here, under our beds and everywhere. There were no levees. Following this flood, levees , but they provided very little protection. This is sacramento in 1850. You can see the pictures here. Heres a bigger picture. This is downtown sacramento. You can see in the picture it inland sea. Endless could navigate 14 miles inland from the river. Thats how deep the river was. They built levees after this, but they were inadequate. They did not even ring the city. Additional floods occurred in 18 52 and 1853. They built more levees and thought they were safe. December 1862, and no one expected what happened next. This storm is what meteorologists called a megastorm, the biggest storm in california history by far. Much rain, andr they touted very heavily we had the most rain in recorded california history this year. Statewide, the worst storm by far was this one. There was a series of extreme rain and snow events that swept the gold country and Sacramento Valley. 15 feet of snow was the cause of it. Most of the central valley, nearly 6000 square miles, was transformed into colossal inland sea. William brewer in his book up and down california, was witness to this and said the devastation spread everywhere. Every house and farm over this immense region is gone. America has never before seen such desolation but large as this has been, and tell them has the old world seen the like. Let me backtrack a little bit. There were floods that happened as well in other areas of the valley. Several weeks after the greater force of the flood came, but this storm was extraordinary. These are the areas of serious flooding, all the way from the Imperial Valley to the Mojave Desert, l. A. Region, the entire Sacramento Valley and points west. In this great storm, one quarter of california cattle drowned. Of every eight buildings was destroyed by flooding or mud. Thousands died. ,till do not know how many died and the devastation triggered by this extraordinary amount of nearly continuous rainfall was just amazing. In nevada city, nevada county, six inches of rain fell in four hours. In a mining camp faced of nevada city with 11 inches in a day. During december, red dog mining camp with 45 inches of rain. The entire summer had more than nine feet of miserable rain. Nearby grass valley has significant rainfall. 66 out of 75 days, significant heavy rainfall. 1860 one to end of january 1862, sonora had 8. 5 feet of rain. Throughout northern california, reached alarming stages. The town of napa was under four feet of water. Via vista and the Sacramento Delta under six feet of water. Massive rainstorms generated landslides. Nearly everyrry, building was ripped to shreds. As the snowpack started to melt, ite are experiencing now also brought with it hydraulic mining debris. It was hurled down stream and inundated towns. In marysville, in the upper Sacramento Valley, they saw not only flooding but also the introduction of seven the of hydraulic mining debris. If you go to marysville today and go through downtown that town, understand is built on top of about 10 feet of hydraulic mining debris. Northern california suffered the brunt of the storms. Southern california was affected as well. Los angeles received 66 inches of rain that year, more than four times normal. Floodwaters had accumulated virtually everywhere in the southern part of the state, in Imperial Valley, and the Mojave Desert turned into a lake. Sacramento, the revamped levee system simply could not hold, and there were torrents, almost biblical proportions. During the flood, waters estimated at 50 feet, 55 feet above flood stage. Hydraulic mining residue left. Idges of sand eight feet deep in march 1860 2, 3 months after the flood this is pictures of it this is downtown sacramento. Months in march, three after the flood in sacramento, William Brewer in his book up and down california, described sacramento this is three months after the flood such a desolate scene, he wrote, i hope to never see again. Much of the city is underwater. No description i can write will give any adequate description of the discomfort and wretchedness which this must give rise to. I took a boat and two boys, and we wrote about for an hour or two. Houses, stores, stables, everything was surrounded by water. Yards were ponds enclosed by dilapidated, slimy fences. Household furniture, chairs, tables, sofas, the wetlands of houses were floating in muddy waters. Over most of the city, boats were still the only way of getting around. Not a road leading from the city is passable. Business is at a standstill. Everything looks forlorn and wretched. I do not think the city will ever rise from the shock. I dont see how they can. But they did. On january 10, 18 62, right at the heart of the storm, californias newly elected governor, leland sanford, was to be inaugurated, at the state capital, which is under construction. Let me mention this the California State Library was originally housed in the state capital. On every floor, it was spread out over every floor on the state capital. When the floodwaters hit, the floodwaters in sacramento on the state capital are rising one foot every hour, and the Capital Building, the office of the the Capital Building was swamped. The office of the state treasurer, which is on the second floor, was submerged under three feet of water. The California State Library, which was spread throughout the building, saw 1000 books submerged and destroyed on the second floor. Stanford arrived at the ritual , his inauguration, by rowboat. Following the Hasty Administration of the oath departed to his flooded downtown mansion in sacramento. He entered his home by scrambling from a rowboat through a window on the second floor. He rebuilt his house after the after this, and he kept the first floor deliberately empty just in case there was flooding again, so everything was on the second and third floor he added a floor. Sacramento developed an extensive flood prevention plan. The city repaired and expanded its levees and began a sevenyour project to raise the downtown street level. If you go to sacramento today and travel along jay street, understand that has been raised from the original level 15 feet, and that was done to forestall any further flooding. There are wonderful underground tours under those streets that show the original gold rush level. These efforts ushered in decades of relative safety in sacramento. But sacramento remains vulnerable. We saw this not very long ago with the potential of the orville dam bursting in which there was a vacuum very close to evacuations very close to sacramento. Here in recent months. In 2008 and 2015, there were studies about the most vulnerable areas in the United States for flooding, and the 2008 report came in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We all remember Hurricane Katrina in new orleans. They studied places these two studies studied the places most vulnerable to flooding. Number two on the list was new orleans. Number one was sacramento. It is still, according to the report the conclusion of the report, sacramentos risk of flooding is the greatest of any major city in the country. And yet, they came back. They did not leave. They were resilient. They kept going. This is the characteristic of the California Gold rush that i find so appealing, that these people suffered tragedies and loss and failure, but they kept going. There was never any second thoughts. They were strong and tough and resilient. And that becomes an almost venerated california trade that that becomes an almost venerated california trait, that we are inventive and innovative, and we roll through the punches through earthquakes and fires and all the other things that have affected us all the way up to the present day. It was concentrated and amplified during the gold rush. A trigger to what we still have today. Perhaps the final word on the resilience of all these gold seekers was provided by a french architect, who had repeatedly witnessed the destructive power of fire in gold rush california. He was here or almost all of the writers i talked about earlier, and subsequent resurgence of the city he was here for almost all of the fires i talked about earlier. He wrote a letter to his cousin in france, this letter here, in which he offered this admiring to the people of gold rush california. He said one calamity more or less seems to make no difference to these californians. What a time. So many stories, so many things that seem so distant in time, and yet, they influence us to this day. There is a historian by the name of tom watkins who said that the history of the gold rush is not so much a historical record, its the record of a seismograph. It was an earthquake and he we still feel the tremors. Resilience, reinvention, innovation, taking a chance, risktaking, entrepreneurialism had their origins in the California Gold rush. It is not a surprise that Silicon Valley started in california. The foundation was set 130 years before. Its not a surprise that hollywood ultimately ended up in dreamrnia, where the factory came to where you can get to the last of the west in california and dream big and fail with relatively little fallout. That was all part of the full gold rush. It is part of our legacy. The gold rush, according to historians the rush aspect lasted seven years. 1855, 1856, but it did not end there, as far as im concerned. The gold rush never ended. It just transformed into agricultural rush and technology rushes and oil rushes and population rushes. It is still with us. We are still feeling the tremors. If you seek the California Gold rush today, it is easy to find. Just look around. Thank you. [applause] we have some time for some questions, i believe. Go up to the microphone if you would like to ask a question. Thank you very much. Just quickly am i is this on . Thank you very much very quickly, on your maps on the flooding of the entire major valleys, i noticed the police valley and those areas did not seem to be flooded. Mr. Noy i think they were, but i think it may have been the play my drawing skills. I did those free hand, but it was basically from the coast range to the sierra. Sacramento said Mccain Valley San Joaquin Valley was basically rim to rim. [inaudible] mr. Noy not very well. The question was how did they eat. If they were fortunate, they had something saved up, but oftentimes, the decision they made was to get out of there as quickly as possible and to get to some place where it was dry and let it dry out. So if they were hungry, it was not for a very long time because they were just traveling to somewhere else where there was more food. Yes, sir . [inaudible] mr. Noy well, theres a couple of reasons. Some of it is it was not always flooding, so getting up to sacramento in the summertime, for instance, the water is low, but i think the bigger thing was that the people who came for the gold rush really were unaware of the geography. Early on theres depictions of this, too theres a widely held this is particularly true in europe that all of california was tropical and that in the sierra, it was not kind trees, it was palm trees it was not kind trees it was not pine trees. It was widely believed that the gold fields were a few miles from San Francisco bay and that you could mine during the day and come back and stay in your ship. When they got here, the gold fever had struck. They wanted to get to the gold fields as quickly as possible. Abandoning the ships just became kind of the norm during the time. It was literally possible in 1840 nine to go from San Francisco to what became oakland by hopping from ship to ship. Thats how many ships were abandoned. Extraordinary. Thank you. Mr. Noy i think you have to speak into the microphone, i think. It is for the tv. I had some questions about hydraulic mining, basically hosing down vast sites. How did they create the water pressure . Mr. Noy they transported water from water sources. In the beginning, they were canvas, but they became metal. I dont know if conduit is the right word, but pipes that had smaller and smaller diameters, so it built up the pressure, and when it got to what were called monitors, which is the water cannon, the pressure had built up by gravity to the fact that they were incredibly powerful, and you could shoot several hundred yards of highpressure water against the hillsides with enormous environmental devastation. That is what happens in these floods. A lot of that debris went down into the water courses and caused huge damage, but the amount of water that was utilized for the hydraulic mines was extraordinary. In one mind, the North Bloomfield mine, they use close to one billion gallons a week of water that was all directed by gravity in ditches and types. In the beginning, they used an even more ineffective method, which was called ground sluicing, in which they would deliver the water to the top of the ridge, and it would essentially form an artificial waterfall. You saw it in one of the pictures earlier, which would just wash away the hillsides in ofer to get an ounce or two of gold, hopefully. The environmental devastation was extraordinary for this. Yeah, you bet. Thank you very much. Mr. Noy sure. I grew up to the blocks from the levy for the sacramento river, and im wondering who originally did build those levies, and seems to me that we run into a real problem with things from the foothills rushing down and raising the water level in the valley. Mr. Noy the original levies were privately built by commercial interests and associations. Part of the problem was they ran out of money, and they were ineffectively built so that when real serious flooding came, the worstcase scenario, these levies were something not capable. The water coming down from the foothills is just, you know, part of nature. Today, they have it under control as much as possible, but even today with the orville dam is a classic example, if theres problems with construction, it could cause devastation. Thank you. Mr. Noy you bet. Yes, sir. Could you Say Something about the use of mercury during the gold rush and enduring consequences . Mr. Noy oh, yes, one of the saddest parts of the gold rush and it happened later, to with other mining. Chris what is called toxic thisy of the gold rush what is called toxic legacy of the gold rush. Mercury was used in the Recovery Process because im not a chemist or scientists, believe me, but gold will bond to mercury in the Recovery Process and make it easier to recover, so mines used mercury and for a while, they use cyanide in this, too, and that goes into water sources and leaches out. If you go to mining historic parks, they have huge leech ponds in which stuff is still coming up, naturally occurring asbestos and mercury that was used in the process. And the hydraulic mines used mercury in this process. They just flushed it in the water courses. And still, they occasionally test the sacramento river, and there are still unacceptably high levels of mercury to this day. Considered in the neighborhood of 10,000 sites in the whole gold country that are excessively dangerous, toxic sites that come from the gold rush and later mining, too. Yes . Thank you. Im wondering where all the workers came from that did all the development. For it to have been done so rapidly. Mr. Noy some were failed miners who had come back to the community to get a start, so they were happy for any kind of job, but the atmosphere of the gold rush, in a calamity, people came together in these cities in an extraordinary fashion. The kind of thing you see in small towns, but here, it was a Larger Community all pulling together because they had dealt with not only fires and floods but epidemics and heat and drought and all kinds of issues. They had to Work Together to survive, and most of them had come a long, long way hoping to prosper from the gold rush and they were not going to quit. These were not quitters, so they were willing to do it. One thing that goes along with us, kind of the remarkable aspect of it is the construction crews for rebuilding mining caps and the like were incredibly eclectic culturally. There were chinese workers, there were many french, there were chileans. There were what were routinely called the sonorans, which was spanishspeaking mexicans. There were people of my heritage, cornish people. There were english, you name it. But in a calamity, they put aside their differences, which were serious, to survive, and a i think that is one of the great hallmarks, one of the most positive aspect of the culture. I have a question about the gold miners, but first, regarding the flood, i was totally ignorant of this because i have not done enough reading. The amazing devastation of the size of these floods and the rain. Has there been anything like this since 1862 . Was this really once in a century or once in several centuries . Mr. Noy this is considered the most unique storm in california history. The only storm that comes close was a couple of years before the gold rush at the time of the donner party, there was massive flooding, and the relief crew that went up to get the donner party actually was able to get there quicker because Sacramento Valley was flooded, and they were able to rowboats closer to the sierra as a result of it. To my knowledge, there has never been anything approaching this megastorm of 1862. With the consequence of very few levies and the like, it was just devastation. I think you said early on that 80 of the miners failed, meaning they did not find any gold or very little. Mr. Noy yes, and that is conservative. There are some who say it is much as 99 . The ones who get the press with the ones who found gold quickly. It was tough. Virtually everyone who came out here gave it a shot at being a surface gold miner just to see. There are stories about lawyers, for instance, because there was almost no law in california, so they had nothing else to do. They would use their top hats as pans, and they would fail because they did not know what they were doing. Most people come a long way, and they stayed and gravitated back to what they were doing before, but most failed, but most did not consider it a failure. They tried, and that became a characteristic of california, too. You could try and fail and theres not going to be james holliday, the great California Gold rush historian said in californias gold rush, there were no hometown eyes watching you, and you could fail and reinvent yourself with relatively little fallout of the earlier the failure was not a failure. It was at least you tried. That was important. [inaudible] mr. Noy thats an open question historically because theres a point in which more people were leaving then coming to california and some of them were what were called probackers gobackers, and they went back to their hometowns with stories of the gold rush that they told the rest of their lives, but a lot of these people were poor who had nowhere else to go. They became the merchants and artisans of the time period, and they stayed and became ultimately californians. Thank you. Mr. Noy you bet. One of the features, one of the aftermath, one of the items that came out of the 1851 fire was the vigilance committee. I wonder if you can talk about that a little bit. Mr. Noy part of that has to do with simply the lawless aspects of california in the gold rush early years. There was virtually cheated years of no law. Also, these fires were fought not by professional firefighters. They were usually by clubs or associations, volunteer groups, and oftentimes, these volunteer groups would compete to see who could get to the fire first because if the city would recompense people, they would pay the first group who got there, so it became almost a contact sport for fire prevention, and that led to personal violence as well, which i think that this kind of lawless community. You reminded me of something. In grass valley in 1855, my hometown, a massive fire broke out. This was after they had spent a great expense, bunch of money, to put together what they called a professional firefighting force in grass valley. They spent almost all the money including bright, shiny uniforms, and they spent their time marching up and down in parades and everybody was very impressed, but they spent almost no money on firefighting equipment, so when the fire happens, it destroyed virtually every home in grass valley. They could not fight it because the Fire Department was not professional. Following that event, there was a huge outcry. We spent all this money on professional firefighting and nothing to show or it. There was a movement to have a professional, fully equipped, fully trained firefighting force in grass valley. It finally arrived three years after the fire. That was also a characteristic of the gold rush because these communities were ephemeral and people stayed a short time and left. Well, thank you so much. I had a great time. Hope you did, too. Thank you so much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] eastern,at 7 00 p. M. Join American History tv for a live tour of the museum of the history of the American Revolution in philadelphia. Scott stevenson will introduce artifacts and exhibits. Hroughout the museum hear stories about the American Revolution, and you can participate in the life program with your phone calls and tweets. Watch American History tv life from the museum of the American Revolution thursday starting at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan three. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. Created as aan was Public Service by americas Television Companies and is brought to you by your Cable Television provider. Theirgonians are proud of high in air heritage. In portland, it highlights some of the legislation that has been passed by the state. Oregonians have always been proud to be pioneers. When the first pioneers moved here, in a sense, was seems to be part of our culture is to be innovative, to try ideas that have never been tried before and push the envelope. That has been done time and time again