Description: The boom era began with the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and extended over fifty years to include the rushes in the Pikes Peak region in Colorado, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Alder Gulch in Montana, and the Yukon. Precious Dust humanizes the mad rush to these remote places.
Review Quotes: "Marks is a gifted writer and an industrious researcher with an eye for telling detail. . . . The result is far and away our best social history of the gold rush experience as well as, in its very strangeness, an American portrait." --Washington Post