“From Napa to Calistoga the country seemed to be well cultivated and adapted for the grape. In the upper part of the valley we saw some splendid vineyards.”
-Mrs. J.W. Likins, 1874
Brannan had brought a printing press with him to California, and established the first newspaper in San Francisco, the Morning Star. Brannan had not only opened new stores to supply miners, but he was personally responsible for the newspaper publicity that was fueling the gold rush.
Samuel Brannan later traveled east of Sacramento to Calistoga, which he named because the natural hot springs there reminded him of Saratoga, New York. Combine California and Saratoga, and you get Calistoga.
Brannan opened the hotel just six months earlier, in hopes of establishing a town around it. Based on the new construction around Calistoga, it appears he was right.
You groan slightly. You tell the bartender that it seems even the secondary methods of making money — selling equipment to prospectors, starting businesses to profit from travelers — are jobs that have already been filled.
“Actually,” the bartender says, “Mr. Brannan is looking for some hired help. He’ll be back in town next month. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about accounting, would you?”
NAPA VALLEY VINEYARD
Your face brightens. “I was a record clerk in Kinderhook,” you tell him. “I kept books for a shipping company.”
Within a month you’re employed by Brannan to help run his dry goods businesses in both Calistoga and Sacramento. The railroad comes through Calistoga, and business booms throughout the 1860s and 1870s.
You earn a fair living in Sacramento, and you move your family to Napa Valley once you have enough money to build a home.
It’s the same work that you did back in New York, but a bit more of an adventure than it would have back East. You spend weekends out in your vineyard, tending your grapes and bottling wine.
Perhaps most importantly, you have no regrets. You didn’t lose your shirt, and you won’t be left wondering what could have been.
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