Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire

Bayard Taylor was among the thousands of young men who spilled into California in the tumultuous year 1849. He arrived not with pick and shovel but with pen and paper, dispatched by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune to report on the madness, exuberance, and upheaval of the California gold rush. Traveling throughout the state, Taylor witnessed the explosive growth of San Francisco and the instantaneous creation of Sierra townships. He traversed the nearly deserted lands of the Spanish missio…