Many of the most successful Californians
during the gold rush were enterprising merchants who sold supplies
to the miners. Rather than mining gold, the merchants prospered by "mining
the miners."
A Bavarian-born dry goods merchant arrived in California
in 1853 with a load of canvas he hoped to sell to the miners for
tents. But this merchant soon found a better use for his canvas,
making pants for the miners. The merchant's name was Levi Strauss,
creator of those trousers known around the world as "Levi's."
Railroad barons Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington
got their start as hardware merchants in the gold-rush town of Placerville.
One of their neighbors, John M. Studebaker, did a brisk business
building and selling wheelbarrows for the miners. Later he and his
brothers became the world's leading manufacturers of wagons and buggies.
Eventually they went on to build automobiles, and from 1902 until
1963 the streets and highways of America were graced with sleek new
Studebakers.
Another up-and-coming gold-rush merchant was a butcher
from New York named Philip Danforth Armour. He made a small fortune
cutting meat
in Placerville and then went back to Chicago where he and his family
became multi-millionaires running the largest meat-packing business
in the world.
