After the Gold Rush: The Future of Small Town California

Series produced by Lisa Morehouse

Caption: PRX default Series image
PRX default Series image 

After the Gold Rush is a series of sound-rich features sharing the stories of California's small towns, their old-timer and newcomer residents, and the changes they've had to make to survive.

California’s cities and small towns are intertwined. Can you imagine San Francisco developing without Gold Rush towns? Today, though, rural California’s defining industries — like fishing, logging and agriculture — have died or changed. To survive, small towns adapt. How they manage tells a larger story of California and the US. After the Gold Rush shares voices, sounds and stories of rural California, from marijuana growers to farm worker housing advocates to law enforcement trainees.


15 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Palmero Francisco Paniagua., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
Agricultural explorers, Arabian fantasy agri-tourism, and dangerous work: all about date palms in California's Coachella Valley.

Bought by KWMR


  • Added: Oct 26, 2013
  • Length: 07:02
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Dr. Oscar Sablan.
This piece features a couple who's served a small farming town for 30 years, and a program working to train Central Valley natives to be doctors he...

Bought by KWMR


  • Added: Oct 02, 2013
  • Length: 06:13
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Rick Jones, owner of the Seiad Valley store, Credit: Lisa Morehouse
In Northern California and Southern Oregon, many residents identify less with those official states than with the State of Jefferson. The piece ex...

Bought by KWMR, Rhythm & News Service, PRX Remix, and WAMC Northeast Public Radio


  • Added: Sep 03, 2013
  • Length: 07:00
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Farmworker Eduardo Amezcua stands next to a water cooler after picking nectarine at HMC Farms outside of Selma., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
California was the first state to adopt heat illness regulations for outdoor workers, but there are still violations, and there are still fatalities.

Bought by KWMR, PRX Remix, and KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Aug 13, 2013
  • Length: 05:03
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Coachella youth crowdsource sewage issues with Professor Ryan Sinclair., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
It’s just 40 miles from Palm Springs, but the Eastern Coachella Valley is home to a host of environmental concerns, ranging from arsenic in the wel...

Bought by WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass. and KWMR


  • Added: Oct 26, 2013
  • Length: 05:02
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Bricks mark the graves of immigrants., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
A cemetery near the California/Mexico border is the last resting place for some immigrants who die crossing the border.

Bought by KWMR and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 02:39
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Mobile home park in Eastern Coachella., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
Mobile home parks -- often in terrible conditions -- have become the defacto solution for a farm worker housing shortage in the Eastern Coachella V...

Bought by KWMR and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 06:50
  • Purchases: 2

  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 06:12
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Interpreters help doctors communicate with patients., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
A hospital works to provide interpreters for all in its farm worker community.

Bought by KWMR and KCBX


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 05:15
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Eduardo Guevara, Credit: Lisa Morehouse
Family health problems inspired Eduardo Guevara to investigate environmental hazards in California's Eastern Coachella Valley.

Bought by KWMR


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 02:31
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Geothermal plants and onion fields., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
Will renewable energy save the county with one of the nation's highest unemployment rates?

Bought by KWMR, KUOW, and Radio Newark


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 07:34
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Prison gates at Avenal, Credit: Lisa Morehouse
Avenal was the first town in California to actively recruit a prison. Town leaders didn't get exactly what they'd hoped.

Bought by KWMR and WAMC Northeast Public Radio


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 06:56
  • Purchases: 2

  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 07:51
  • Purchases: 3
Piece image
In the grape-growing region of California’s Anderson Valley, a group of Latina immigrants turn stories of hardship into beautiful quilts as part of...

Bought by KWMR and Rhythm & News Service


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 04:35
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Grape harvest, Navarro Vineyards., Credit: Lisa Morehouse
Residents worry Boonville's ideal climate for wine grapes will turn their town into wine-tourism Disneyland.

Bought by KWMR, Rhythm & News Service, and Radio Newark


  • Added: Jul 08, 2013
  • Length: 06:45
  • Purchases: 3