In 1848, more than a thousand ships set sail for San Francisco, filled with eager fortune hunters. James P. Delgado provides a comprehensive examination of the Gold Rush from the perspective of the mariners to demonstrate that maritime activity is a pervasive thread in the event's history.

Described as a "forest of masts," San Francisco's Gold Rush waterfront was a floating economy of ships and wharves, where a dazzling array of global goods was traded and transported. Drawing on excavations in buried ships and collapsed buildings from this period, James P. Delgado re-creates San Francisco's unique maritime landscape, shedding new light on the city's remarkable rise from a small village to a boomtown of thousands in the three short years from 1848 to 1851. Gleaning history from artifacts--preserves and liquors in bottles, leather boots and jackets, hulls of ships, even crocks...