The long car carried the men down into the depths of the Empire Gold Mine outside of Grass Valley, California. The year is 1850. These men are working to find and extract gold from the hard quartz rock in the Foothill Mountains of California. The tunnel that they were descending down wasn’t very high, so they had to watch their heads. There they were, a line of men, one seated behind the other, moving slowly down a track.

One half mile (about 2500 feet) above them, their coworkers worked with a large motor that released the tension on a length of rope and thus lowered them further and further down into the black depths below. They still had another 2500 feet to travel before they reached the bottom.

And so begins the fascinating history of the Gold Rush!

If you think the gold rush was all about money and getting rich, think again! Most people didn’t get rich at all. In this book, just for kids, you will find out what really happened during the gold rush.

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