Mark James Miller: Gold Fever Once Swept the Central Coast — and Never Really Left

Mark James Miller: Gold Fever Once Swept the Central Coast — and Never Really Left

The Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. Six years before James W. Marshall found a nugget of gold at Sutter’s Mill, a Californio named Francisco Lopez fell asleep beneath an oak tree alongside the San Feliciano tributary to Piru Creek in Ventura County. According to legend, Lopez dreamed he was surrounded by gold, and upon awakening, he plucked some wild onions from a nearby field and saw flakes of gold clinging to their roots. Cal…