TWHP

The Players

The Players Meet the People Who Made California The Plots Learn the Strange Tales The Places See the Towns They Built San Francisco The Birth of the Modern World The Gold Rush The Find that Energized America The Comstock Lode The Greatest Silver Strike in History and the Big Bonanza The Transcontinental Railroad The Train that Transformed the Nation The Alaska Grab The Making of a Monopoly

San Francisco, California and the West directly resulted from a rare situation unparallelled, perhaps, in history. The new land offered obvious riches in the form of gold, but it was not long before people recognized the potential in farmland, timber, other minerals and commerce in general. To this venue traveled the most restless people from the American nation and the world, men--and they were, for the most part, men--who brought with them ambition and talent capable of exploiting all they encountered. There were few fetters to restrain them except for the blandishments and violence of other men, and in the decades following the Gold Rush, they unleashed a wave of entrepreneurial energy that transformed the human imagination. Anything was possible, anyone could do anything. And they did it all.

Gertrude Atherton
Ambrose Bierce
Sam Brannan
Ina Coolbrith
Charles Crocker
George Derby
James Fair
James Flood
Agoston Haraszthy
Bret Harte
George Hearst
Mark Hopkins
Collis Huntington
Theodore Judah
Thomas Larkin
John Mackay
John Miller
Darius Ogden Mills
Eadweard Muybridge
Gustave Niebaum
William O'Brien
John Parrott
William Ralston
Robert Semple
Junipero Serra
William Sharon
William Sherman
Leland Stanford
John Sutter
General Mariano Vallejo
Robert Waterman
George Yount


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