Between the discomfort of hard beds, fleas, and overcrowding, the entire
populace spent most of its time on the street or in the saloons and
gambling, houses. As some one has pointed out, this custom added greatly
to the apparent population of the place. Gambling was the gaudiest, the
best-paying, and the most patronized industry. It occupied the largest
structures, and it probably imported and installed the first luxuries.
Of these resorts the El Dorado became the most famous. It occupied at
first a large tent but soon found itself forced to move to better
quarters. The rents paid for buildings were enormous. Three thousand
dollars a month in advance was charged for a single small store made of
rough boards. A two-story frame building on Kearny Street near the Plaza
paid its owners a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year rent. The
tent containing the El Dorado gambling saloon was rented for forty
thousand dollars a year. The prices sky-rocketed still higher. Miners
paid as high as two hundred dollars for an ordinary gold rocker, fifteen
or twenty dollars for a pick, the same for a shovel, and so forth. A
copper coin was considered a curiosity, a half-dollar was the minimum
tip for any small service, twenty-five cents was the smallest coin in
circulation, and the least price for which anything could be sold. Bread
came to fifty cents a loaf. Good boots were a hundred dollars.

Affairs moved very swiftly. A month was the unit of time. Nobody made
bargains for more than a month in advance. Interest was charged on money
by the month. Indeed, conditions changed so fast that no man pretended
to estimate them beyond thirty days ahead, and to do even that was
considered rather a gamble. Real estate joined the parade of advance.
Little holes in sand-hills sold for fabulous prices. The sick,
destitute, and discouraged were submerged beneath the mounting tide of
vigorous optimism that bore on its crest the strong and able members of
the community. Every one either was rich or expected soon to be so.