THE WELLS FARGO BOOK OF THE GOLD RUSH

California went from territory to statehood exceedingly fast because the discovery of gold brought in prospectors from any place on the globe where the news spread. James Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Coloma mill, but it was not he who started the “Rush”—it was supply store owner Sam Brannan, an excommunicated Mormon who ran into San Francisco shouting, “Gold! Gold!,” thus propelling California into statehood and Sutter into poverty. Rau discusses technical details of mining, trade, demographics, personalities, customs, history, the story of the Wells Fargo Company, and more in an account generously illustrated from the Wells Fargo Archives. The anecdotes she supplies are interesting and amusing, offering an often fascinating look at a period of time like no other in history. However, a map of the state is needed since most won’t know that Fort Ross on the Pacific Coast is several mountain ranges and many miles from Coloma, among other geographical niceties. More also should have been made about the destruction of California’s native population, the extreme danger to foreigners, especially the Chinese, and the rape of the land because of mining practices. The book reads well but Rau’s paeans to Wells Fargo are a mite excessive and various matters are left dangling or unexplained. The book is filled with minor errors, nothing egregious, but annoying to a true scholar of California history. While this is not a first choice, it is certainly a good additional purchase, one that every school in the “Golden State” will acquire. (index; no footnotes; bibliography lacks Web sites) (Nonfiction. 8-12)