If any one thing opened up the West, it was gold. Beset by an incurable gold fever, men by the droves (and some women) abandoned the security of hearth and home to join the hundreds of thousands of determined gold seekers. Few anticipated the sheer challenge of getting there, the lawlessness or the shattered expectations that came to define the emerging frontier. Tony Hollihan spins the tales of the five legendary gold rushes: California, The Fraser River, the Cariboo, the Black Hills, and the Klondike.