Sam Aaron (1866-1940) - The son of a frontiersman, Aaron was the first Jewish boy born in Salt Lake City, Utah and at a young age, moved with his family to various places including Galveston, Texas; New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and finally back west in 1877, landing in Butte, Montana. It was in Butte, that eleven year old Sam earned his first money, selling apples in saloons. The following year, the family moved again to Oregon, before making their way to San Francisco, California, and finally to Charleston, Arizona in the early 1880s, where his father operated a store. Sam clerked by day and gambled by night until he lost $1,000 of his fathers money gambling and to pay off the debt, took a job at the nearby Tombstone Mining and Mill Company. Later, he went to work as a Faro Dealer in Tombstone, where he met the likes of the Earps and Clantons. Late in life, he wrote his memoirs highlighting pioneer life, Apache raids, and some of the interesting characters that he met. He died on September 29, 1940 in Pomona, California.

Thomas Adams - Adams went west as civil engineer with the Isaac I. Stevens' railroad survey expedition in 1853 and later became expedition leader, Lieutenant John Mullan's assistant, as well as  topographer and artist for the survey. he then became the temporary Indian Agent for the Flatheads in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, and had a role in the Flathead Treaty Council of 1855. He continued to work with the survey expedition until it departed in 1857. Somewhere along the line, he briefly married a Flathead woman and the two had a child. In 1858, he was prospecting with Granville Stuart when the first Montana gold was found in Gold Creek. By 1864, Adams had returned to the east as was farming in Maryland and in 1866 was living in Washington, D.C. Afterwards, his life is lost in history.

Samuel Brannan (1819-1889) - California's first millionaire started life in Maine in 1819 before moving with his family to Ohio when he was 14 years-old. He became a printer's apprentice and in 1836 began to move around as a journeyman printer. Converting to Mormonism in 1842, he moved to New York City to help publish several Mormon newspapers. Three years later, Brannan led a group of over 200 New York Mormons to California to find a better life. Briefly, he published a San Francisco newspaper before moving on to John Sutter's settlement, where he opened a general store. Soon; however, the Mormons accused him of diverting Mormon funds into his own business and expelled him from the church. When James Marshall discovered gold in 1848, Brannan capitalized by widely publicizing the discovery and outfitting the flood of prospectors. Before long, he became the Golden State's first millionaire. The next year he returned to San Francisco, were he was elected to the City Council and played a leading role in organizing the controversial Committee of Vigilance. Continuing in various business ventures, including land investments, banking, and railroad and telegraph companies, his wealth continued to grow. However, Brannan was a serious drinker, which ultimately led to his loss of fortune and his death in 1889.