sam brannan
Sam Brannan was an a journalist a very successful businessman during the gold rush by buying mining equipment like pickaxes and pans for 20 cents and then selling them for $15! He went to the gold rush and took a piece of gold then went around San Francisco holding up his gold nugget and shouting "Gold, gold in the American River!" In only nine weeks during 1849 which was later known as the gold rush he made $36,ooo. and by the time the gold rush ended so many people had gold fever that by selling all of the mining equipment and goods he became San Francisco’s first ever millionaire! By opening a store near the gold rush he would occasionally go to the gold rush and later he would sell those goods. In only one month he made over $150,000 by selling gold and other goods from the gold rush! He was paid by Johann Sutter and other people for his land. Sam Brannan used a lot of his money for land and so when people started rushing to Sutter's Mill in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains which was exactly what Sutter didn't want so he did two things. First, he fired James Marshall because when Marshall found the first hunk of gold Sutter told Marshall not to tell anyone because he didn't want anyone trespassing on his land. Then because Brannan was spending some of his money on land Sutter wanted some of that land for himself because people were invading his current land so he bought some of Brannan's land to re-build his land.