"Like A Slow-Moving but Unstoppable Glacier"
IN THE BEARRIVERAND T h e oil boom that came north from Uinta County, Wyoming, into the Bear River and Bear Lake valleys during the 1970s was a continuation of a western tradition that started in the California gold fields of 1849. The discovery of gold near Sutter's Fort on the American River brought an overland stampede of eighty thousand would-be miners into California between 1849 and 1851. The California gold rush was short lived, but in the space of two years it helped transform the Mormon settlement at Salt Lake City from failure to success and enabled Brigham Young to consider plans for expansion. The gold rush also brought a significant increase in area population as merchants and businessmen, many of them nonMormons, moved to the cccross-roadsof the West" to take advantage of the overland trade. By 1851, however, the rush was practically finished. Emigrants continued to pass through Salt Lake City just as they continued to follow the meanderings of the Bear River to Fort Hall and on into Oregon, but these emigrants were largely farming families heading for permanent settlements. The search for precious metals, however, remained an enduring part of western history and both
