Samuel Brannan (1848)

1848: Samuel Brannan announces the discovery of gold in the American River to the city of San Francisco, in his newspaper. Brannan arrived in Yerba Buena in 1846 with a group of Mormon missionaries, bringing with him a printing press and a flour mill.

Brannan, Samuel, 1819-1889. His drinking left him ostracized from the Mormon community and he died poor and forgotten. Image courtesy of
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.