THE ROAD TRIP
WEEK 3

DAY 15 – Sunday, March 28

START: Orangevale, CA

END: Orangevale, CA

MILEAGE: 52 miles

HIGHLIGHTS: Laura’s house, Old Sacramento

Some visionaries just never catch a break.  After several failed business ventures in his homeland of Switzerland, John Augustus Sutter arrived in Mexican-owned California in 1839 with the goal of establishing an agriculture-based empire, called New Helvetia.  His settlement, Sutter’s Fort, was in a prime location right at the confluence of two major rivers, the Sacramento and the American.  But over the next ten years he encountered every conceivable roadblock to his vision including drought, heavy rains and anxious creditors – not to mention civil war and political unrest brought on by the United States’ annexation of California.

But nothing nailed the coffin shut on Sutter’s dreams more decisively than when gold was discovered in a riverbed at his very own sawmill in 1848.  Right away it became difficult to get a full day’s work out of the laborer’s he’d hired, mostly local Indians and Mormon pioneers, who saw more potential for wealth in the riverbed than in the meager wages Sutter was paying them.  (And today’s employers think the internet is a costly distraction).  Sutter and the other settlers were able to keep the discovery a secret for a while.  Even a newspaper article printed two months later, declaring GOLD MINE FOUND, only attracted a few curious prospectors. 

It ended up being the Mormons who blew the cover on the whole thing when they brought their golden tithes to a San Francisco church.  Pretty soon, Mormons, Christians and atheists alike were running through the streets shouting, “Gold!  Gold in the American River!”  The entire city reportedly emptied within a few days as everybody caught gold fever and swarmed en masse to Sutter’s Fort.

Sutter’s agricultural dreams died a quick death as every able-bodied worker abandoned his wheat fields, gristmills and tannery vats in search of gold.  Squatters took up residence in Sutter’s fields and even broke into the fort itself, stealing livestock, tools and any other supplies that would hold them over for another day of prospecting.  In less than six months word had spread as far as Hawaii and Peru and the Gold Rush was officially on.  By the end of 1848 there were over five thousand miners working the river.  By the end of 1849, there were forty thousand, coming from as far away as Europe and China, all with visions of quick and easy fortune. 

With creditors breathing down his neck and no crop to cash in on, Sutter desperately looked for ways to profit off the country’s new obsession.  His intention was to establish a town, appropriately named Sutterville, a few miles south of the junction of the two rivers, in an area less prone to flooding.  Sutter left the matter in the hands of his capable son while he went prospecting in nearby Coloma.  He returned only to discover that his son had kowtowed to pressure from local merchants and built the town closer to the rivers – and subsequent flood plain – than Sutter had wanted.  Adding insult to injury, he’d also gone ahead and named the town, not after his father, but after the river: Sacramento.

Less than two years later, inevitable flooding destroyed much of the town.  Soon after that, fires destroyed it even further.  Riots broke out between squatters and Sutter’s landholders, killing several.  A smallpox outbreak a year later killed hundreds more.  In just over a decade, the city was hit by no less than four devastating floods, finally prompting the city planners to haul in thousands of cubic yards of dirt in order to raise the town’s elevation by twelve feet. 

Not only had Sutter’s dreams of an agricultural empire been completely dashed by gold fever… and not only was he never able to profit off the gold discovered on his own land… and not only did the Supreme Court declare many of Sutter’s land holdings to be invalid… but then a small band of men burned Sutter’s house down in 1865, forcing him and his family to move back east, bankrupt.  They settled down in a small Pennsylvania town while Sutter continually sought financial restitution from Washington and was repeatedly denied.  Finally, after years of hearing his petitions, Congress passed a bill in 1880 granting him $50,000 in recompense.  John Augustus Sutter died of heart failure two days later.

He wasn’t the only one who caught the ugly end of the Gold Rush.  People from every corner of the globe were drawn by the stories of quick and easy fortune; gold so easily and readily accessible that one needed only a metal pan and a way to get there.  Rich and poor alike picked up or sold everything they owned and made the trip west, sometimes taking as long at five months to get there, all with the same alluring dream in their heads: pan gold for a few days and live comfortably for the rest of your life.  Beyond that, California was still free land at the time, with only a bare shell of law and government in place.  People saw not only the promise of wealth and prosperity, but also the freedom to live and do with it as they saw fit.  

By the time most of them got there, the only gold left was buried deep underground, requiring specialized (read: expensive) equipment to retrieve it.  In the end, only a few fairly industrious corporations actually profited off of the physical gold taken from the two rivers.  Otherwise, most of the revenue was generated by resourceful entrepreneurs providing any number of services – honest or otherwise – catering to the many gold seekers all along the rivers and wagon trails leading to California.  For the rest, broken dreams and empty wallets gave way to debauchery and lawlessness, turning Sacramento into as dangerous an old west town as any at the time.

History of course is cyclical, and exactly one hundred and fifty years later people from all over the United States once again rushed back to California and toward the promise of quick and easy fortune when the dot-com boom gave everybody internet fever.  This time, instead of pans and shovels, they came with iMac’s and business plans.  Just as before, the landscape was free and full of possibility, with very few laws restricting the use of cyberspace.  But yet again, it was only the few very industrious (and very lucky) companies that actually turned a profit and survived their first year.  The rest cashed in their broken dreams along with their stock options and likewise gave in to debauchery to go work for Microsoft.

As for the old city of Sacramento, much of it has been preserved and restored as a 28-acre National Historic Landmark.  Today, even though most commercial business is done several miles east in the new and modern city center, Old Sacramento (or “Old Sac” as the locals call it) is the number one tourist draw in the region with over five million visitors every year.  Along with horse drawn carriage rides, riverboat rides and train rides, the area boasts several of points of historical interest including a gold rush era firehouse, California’s first theater and a Pony Express station, as well as dozens of museums focusing on everything from California’s railroad history to its military history, and of course, its gold rush history.

But we went into Old Sac with Laura, a local, so we didn’t do any of that touristy crap.  The four of us walked (at Laila’s pace of course) along the wooden sidewalks and cobblestone streets on a picture perfect Sunday afternoon.  I was impressed at the lengths the city had gone to to preserve the feel of the Old West town this place had once been, even going so far as to leave up a few of the old hitching posts. 

Not that there were any horses around in need of hitching.  Instead, there were motorcycles.  Everywhere.  Old Sac is an extremely biker-friendly area and all around us we could hear the constant rattle of Harley Davidsons as packs of bikers drove up and down the main drag.  The American Motorcyclist Association organizes several fundraisers every year, including a gigantic Toys for Tots run that begins and ends in this part of town, so it’s been in the best interest of the local businesses to remain friendly.  Most every bar and restaurant we walked by had a sign out front proclaiming “Bikers Welcome.”  The city even stepped up a few years back and designated several “motorcycles only” parking areas close-by. 

As Laura put it, “Bikers like to be with other bikers.  You don’t usually see a bar with a ‘Bikers Welcome’ sign and only two or three bikers inside.  They’re like schools of fish and everyone knows this.”

As I looked around at the hordes and hordes of leather-clad bikers dumping plenty of money into the local economy, I realized that this was the Old West of today, and bikers were the modern day cowboys.  They’re usually true blue-collar men, sometimes on the fringes of society, living life their way, and earning a wage with their own muscles and sweat.  But instead of chaps, ten-gallon hats and a faithful steed, it’s leather jackets, helmets and a Harley Davidson.

We browsed in and out of several shops and had a good laugh at the funny t-shirts and magnets in a novelty store called Evangeline’s.  Lauren picked up a bunch of paraphernalia for our ducky bathroom back home and I even managed to find myself an Old Sacramento shotglass.  Later on we met up with Jay who paid for our burgers and fries over at Fanny Ann’s.  By mid-afternoon I could feel a cold coming on, so I made sure to drink lots of water, sit down whenever I could, and opted out when the girls went to get ice-cream.  All in all, it was a nice laid back day.  The weather was perfect, the setting was perfect and of course, the company was perfect.

Back at Laura’s house, after Laila was in bed, the three of us hunkered down to watch Pirates of the Caribbean while I popped zinc tablets and piled on layers of clothes in an effort to sweat out my cold before it got worse.  Laura and Lauren both laughed when I explained my plan to them, but I knew it would work.  It had in the past.  I put on sweatpants, extra t-shirts, sweatshirts, heavy socks, extra blankets; I toss and turn and thrash about and have a miserable night’s sleep, but no matter what, I never do anything to cool myself down.  And lo and behold, by morning, my cold is always gone… or at least cut down drastically.  Unfortunately for Lauren, the skeletons in tonight’s movie had scared her so much that she didn’t want me sleeping even five feet away from her on the spare bed in our room.  But after plenty of reasoning and cajoling, she relented.  As usual, I thrashed and sweated profusely, but come morning, I was right as rain.