Beyond Luck

It's one of the unlikeliest family sagas of the American West: A bankrupt California fruit farmer stakes his last dollar on a Yukon expedition, uncovers a fortune in gold and helps launch the frenzied Klondike gold rush of 1897, all on his honeymoon. And that's just the beginning. Now rich and famous, Clarence Berry gambles his gold windfall on the barren hills of California's southern badlands and strikes oil just in time for the ascent of the automobile. It's a wild, rollicking ride, and the ever-generous Berry brings his family and friends along for the adventure. As generations pass, the Berry name-link to gold, oil, race horses, boxing rings and baseball teams-drops from the headlines but the family fortune quietly grows. So does the oil business Clarence Berry founded: Berry Petroleum sells in 2013 for nearly five billion dollars.