The discovery of gold spurred tremendous financial and physical growth throughout the West. For the first time in history, individuals--not kings or sultans--could have gold for the taking, inspiring tens of thousands of people to make the arduous journey West.

The Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in American History--with hundreds of thousands of fortune seekers eager to stake their claim to the billions buried beneath California.

The real story of how gold made millionaires of a few, but spelled disaster for most of the fortune seekers who were lured to the hills.               

An account of the gold rush that enticed 100,000 fortune-seekers to travel over mountains and through the white rapids of the Yukon River to reach the gold fields. About 20,000 actually made it and discovered that most of the gold had already been staked, panned, and mined.

The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848 changed the American West and the world. Thousands of dreamers descended upon California to stake claims, followed by rushes to Nevada, Alaska, Montana, and other territories with the uncovering of silver and copper deposits. We look at the technology developed to exploit Earth's riches--cables, elevators, pumps, ventilators, and drills--as mining went further underground and evolved from a one-man operation to a multi-billion-dollar industry.

The legend of the Lost Dutchman Mine is one of the most famous and controversial mysteries of the great Southwest. It's a story riddled with conflicting theories, falsified maps, and even untimely death to many who traversed into the ominous terrain of Arizona's Superstition Mountains. The clues to finding the rich gold vein revolve mainly around Jacob Waltz, or "The Dutchman." Treasure hunters have searched for his mine since his death in 1891, but the mine remains "lost," and the quest continues.

Profile of the city that attracted silver miners and became one of the great boomtowns of the 19th century.                                            

A look at how the men who robbed stagecoaches, trains, and banks planned and pulled off their crimes.