California State of Mind

By Martin Reinders
Volunteer Contributor

Since the first cries of “GOLD!!!” back in January 1848 started the largest single migration (300,000 people over 7 years) in US history, California has been the land of opportunity, imagination, innovation, creativity, and endless hopes and dreams. People came from all over the world to Northern California seeking wealth. Those who didn’t pan gold found other ways to create that wealth. Levi Strauss made jeans for gold miners that withstood the rigors of mining and daily wear. Wells Fargo bank was established to handle the gold. Samuel Brannan opened a mercantile store selling shovels, picks, pans, and food which made him the first millionaire from the gold rush. There is a street named after him in San Francisco still today. John Studebaker made and sold wheelbarrows. Numerous hotels, brothels, bars, and gaming houses sprang up all over to relieve the miners of their newfound wealth.

After the gold rush many people stayed in California seeking the next opportunity, that next pot of gold. Their imagination, as well as their hopes and dreams, had been forever sparked. California was forever changed and there was no turning back. The people that came during the gold rush brought new ideas, energy, creativity, imagination, innovation, and found a place that was willing to be the cradle to foster growth for those ideas.

That mentality of growth and change has never diminished. Over the last century and a half California has continued to lead the country and in some ways lead the world in innovation, creativity, social acceptance, and cutting-edge technology. People from all over still flock to California looking for their "pot of gold". California mirrored those same hopes and dreams that people had hundreds of years prior when they immigrated to the United States. It was that same opportunity and the same promise of a new beginning that drove them to risk everything to come here. That feeling still drives people today.

As someone who spent decades traveling for business I have seen many places in America that have lost that imagination and with it, those same hopes and dreams. I have seen towns dying before my eyes. I have seen businesses shuttered, no new construction, old dilapidated buildings, and empty streets. I am thankful that I live in California, where that drive has never died. I truly hope that it never does.

Martin Reinders was born and raised in the Bay Area. He has traveled all over California from Big Sur to Yosemite, Clearlake to the Pinnacles, San Diego to Lake Tahoe, the Mojave Desert to Monterey. California has always been his playground.