
The stories of gold fired the imagination of many an early pioneer. So, in wagons, on horseback and if need be, on foot they came to get rich. The great transcontinental migration to the California gold mines that began in 1849 found the high mountains in Colorado a barrier to travel so that the main trails to the Far West were the Overland route, through Wyoming, on the north, and the Santa Fe route, through New Mexico, on the south.
