No expression characterized the California gold rush more than the words "seeing the elephant." Those planning to travel west announced they were "going to see the elephant." Those turning back claimed they had seen the "elephant’s tracks" or the "elephant’s tail," and admitted that view was sufficient.

The expression predated the gold rush, arising from a tale current when circus parades first featured elephants. A farmer, so the story went, hearing that a circus was in town, loaded his wagon with vegetables for the market there. He had never seen an elephant and very much wished to. On the way to town he encountered the circus parade, led by an elephant. The farmer was thrilled, but his horses were not. Terrified, they bolted, overturning the wagon and ruining the vegetables. "I don’t give a hang," the farmer said, "for I have seen the elephant."

For gold rushers, the elephant symbolized both the high cost of their endeavor—the myriad possibilities for misfortune on the journey or in California—and like the farmer’s circus elephant, an exotic sight, an unequaled experience, the adventure of a lifetime.

—Jo Ann Levy in They Saw the Elephant