The Gold Rush brought settlers from many lands. Adventurers, too. But nobody could have imagined how much California was about to change – and how quickly.
New ways to communicate and travel linked California to the rest of the country and the world. John Butterfield’s Overland Mail Company delivered mail by stagecoach. It traveled from the East to San Francisco. The Pony Express was a horseback relay system. It cut the time it took to deliver mail. A new invention was the telegraph. It sent messages in minutes. But it was the completion of the transcontinental railroad that made travel to California much easier. The year was 1869.
