this is a settler, this is a man called johan sutter, and he lived on what was called sutter's site. i mentioned in one of the previous lectures that americans had been moving into texas even when texas was still a mexican territory, and american settlers were moving into california even when it was still mexican territory. one of those was johann sutter. there it is in the upper picture, it's very different from a shop and the fact that he had to have a fort, was a sign of how politically volatile the area was. he was expecting to be attacked so he took precautions against that. he was in sacramento and one of the things he wanted to sell was lumber, but the lumber was going to come from up in the foothills of the sierra nevada mountains which is east of new mexico. and so he sent one of his assistants, called james marshall up the american river and asked him to design and build a saw mill. and this was just a place where the american river is flowing fast enough that the water can turn a water wheel and the wheel is attached to circular saw blades so the wood could be cut and send