The Presses Stop

• After Sam Brannan's frenzied announcement of the gold finds at the American River, the residents of San Francisco all decided they would try their luck at the Diggings. The storekeepers closed up shop completely, or some hung notes on their doors telling those that remained to take what they needed and put the money in the drawer.

• Because of the gold craze, subscribers to one of the early newspapers, The Californian, were rapidly disappearing. This paper suspended publication with the announcement:

  "The majority of our subscribers and many of our advertisers have closed their doors and places of business and left town...while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes..."(15)