Fueled by the dream to strike it rich, prospectors flocked to California during the gold rush. Yet the harsh lifestyle and backbreaking work led many to early graves. Join author Linda Bottjer on a tour through Gold Country's most chilling--and true--haunted tales. Tales such as the hangman of Placerville, whose distinctive wheeze is a sign of his continued presence. Or the Georgetown miner whose unrequited love for a much younger lady of the night finds him still pining for her in death as he did in life. And in Coloma, the ghost of James Marshall is said to dwell on the lonely hilltop where his cabin and monument now stand. These stories, and many others, capture the ghostly spirit of Gold Country.

This book is about exploring old gold and silver mines in Part One. Part Two is about actual experiences using various recovery equipment to find gold. Part Three is a look at some of the million dollar gold mines from present to the 1800's. Part Four is about new equipment to recover gold from rivers and streams.

In this historic region of northern California, there are hotels where some guests never checked out—even after death . . . Step across the threshold of a haunted hotel in California’s renowned Gold Country and encounter phantom figures of yesteryear. Wispy apparitions of gentleman guests in Victorian coats and ladies in fashionable flapper gowns glide through the walls, while unexplained sobs and choking gasps disturb the night. There’s Stan, the Cary House’s eternal desk clerk, and bachelor ghost Lyle, who tidies the Groveland Hotel. Flo tosses pots and pans in the National’s kitchen, while the once-scorned spirit of Isabella ties the Sierra Nevada House’s curtains in knots. From suicidal gamblers to murdered miners, the Mother Lode’s one-time boomtowns are crowded with characters of centuries past. Book your stay with author Nancy Williams as she explores the history and haunts of the Gold Country’s iconic hotels. Includes photos!

A history of the earlier Southern gold rush and its legends that—for the first time—ties it to the well-known California gold rush of 1849. Nancy Roberts tells how it all began in North Carolina, which supplied all the domestic gold coined at the US Mint between 1804 and 1828. She tells the story of the discovery of the gold in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama and later in California and Colorado, including how the Virginia, Carolina and Georgia gold miners abandoned their mines within weeks after news arrived of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Creek. And, for a while, they were said to be the only experienced miners in the Western gold fields. Ms. Roberts recreates with gusto and suspense the experiences of real people—the adventurers and entrepreneurs, family men and rascals, immigrants and bandits, entertainers and miners—and also includes several tales of the supernatural from the period. There was North Carolina’s flamboyant Walter George Newman, who fleeced the wolves of Wall Street; “Fool Billy,” who South Carolinians discovered was not a fool at all; a romantic specter called Scarlett O’Hara of the Dorn Mine; Georgian Green Russell, with his beard braided like a pirate, who founded Denver; “Free Jim,” the only black man in Dahlonega to own his own gold mine only to leave it for San Francisco; the Grisly Ghost of Gold Hill; a general from North Carolina who became an influential Californian; the ghost bride of Vallecito; and California’s bandit, the enigmatic Black Bart.

On January 24, 1848, pioneer James W. Marshall discovered gold in central California. When word got out, gold fever set in, drawing hundreds of thousands of pioneers to the state hoping to strike it rich. Discover the circumstances and effects of this event in The California Gold Rush.