One of the most amazing things about living where we do, is the amount of  history. This history came to life for us in the form of the Jin Lin Trail.  As we ascended up the hill we heard the stories of Chinese Miners who labored upon the land in search of gold in the 1800's. With each step we took voices from the past seemed to emit from the soil.

While the scenery was amazing I could not avoid the feeling of sadness that hovered about as the wind whispered upon the trees. As an immigrant these men could not own the land upon which they worked unless it had been mined to exhaustion by a non-immigrant. Therefore, for many the dream and hope they sought to find was squelched.

Jin Lin was no exception to this rule however, he was a brilliant engineer who saw past the obvious and developed methods that allowed for deeper mining. Accumulating a mass of claims he soon found himself an acclaimed businessman. The result of this perseverance came with a great reward, gold and a lot of it. During his life on American soil he deposited well over 1 million dollars in gold into the local bank- keep in mind this was the 1800's.

Of course no story of such magnitude cannot be without a twist. Upon closing his operations and traveling to Chinatown (San Francisco) he disappeared en route. Some wonder if he was waylaid by bandits however my feeling is this, no man this savvy succumbs to such a fate. I think Jin Lin disappeared purposefully - perhaps relishing in the very thing he sought "The American Dream".

Comments

[susanc]

What a beautiful place to hike! I like to think that he did purposefully "disappear" and enjoyed the rest of his life.

I went to WW today and have lost 2.5 pounds so far! Hope you're doing well too! Have a great week! :)

[Cindy]

Kristen, what a fascinating place to hike. I was not familiar with this piece of history - thank you for sharing it with me.

[Ellen]

I love that you honored and felt the reflection of time when you and your son went hiking~ I didn't know this; amazing a million in that time period...whoah! Thanks for sharing this with us~