THE GEYSER INN: Today a visitors center, it was one of the first buildings in Calistoga. As far back as 1860, visitors traveled hundreds of miles to soak in the mineral-rich hot springs of Calistoga.

“We saw there a cabin of unfinished boards, a few huts of woven branches and a short distance away a large store with a huge sign that read ‘Brannan and Co.’

The chief of this establishment was the ex-Mormon Brannan… the possessor of one of the securest fortunes in California at that period.”

-Vicente Pérez Rosales, 1849

You arrive in Calistoga to find it is a mining town, but men are mining silver, not gold. Out on the horizon, you see the silhouettes of men working furiously in the evening sun. You make your way up toward the commotion.

At the top of the hill, Mount Saint Helena, you find an encampment of workers at the Silverado Mine. They are all Chinese. They swing pickaxes and adzes, chopping at the side of the mountain in unison. The only person who speaks English is a foreman who screams at them at the top of his lungs, hollering terrible things you immediately try to forget. The foreman glares at you.

“I suppose you come looking for fortune,” he says. You smile awkwardly. “Unless you’re willing to work for a penny a day like these Chinamen, you’re out of luck. Old Man Brannan bought all this land, and he’s too busy to mine it himself.”

You head back into town, to the Hot Springs Hotel, and sit at the bar. The bartender serves you a hot cup of coffee and tells you the story of Calistoga.

You learn that Samuel Brannan was a Mormon publisher in New York City, and came west by ship to San Francisco with the intention of establishing a Mormon presence in California after the death of Joseph Smith. In fact, Brannan tried to convince Brigham Young to lead the Mormon caravan all the way to California, but Young insisted on Utah. Brannan returned to California, eventually abandoning the Mormon Church.

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