Gold Country ’49

Most people who came to California in 1849 were looking for gold. Some men came to make money in other ways.

In 1853, a man made a pair of pants on an old sewing machine. The pants were made out of canvas. They were strong and long lasting. In just a few months, his pants became popular with miners. He could hardly sew pants fast enough to keep up with the number of people that wanted to buy them. He got rich overnight. What was his name? Levi Strauss. He made the first pair of Levi’s jeans.

Phillip Armour lived in New York. He decided he would walk to California. He stopped in a town called Placerville, California. He opened a store and sold meat. Phillip made so much money that he moved his meat plant to Wisconsin. He became the largest meat maker in the world. He made Armour hot dogs and sausages.

Henry Wells and William Fargo moved to San Francisco. They had a stagecoach company and started a bank. Mail was moved from place to place on their stagecoaches. People put money in their bank. Henry and William kept it safe. They let others who needed money use it, if they paid it back. Wells Fargo was the name of their company. Today, it does not carry mail. It does not bring people on a stagecoach. It is a bank that is found in towns across the United States. The name is still Wells Fargo.

These men did not find gold in pans. They did not look for it in the streams. They got their money from their new ideas.