So why not sell it on the quiet? Secretly mine enough gold to give you enough cash, take a journey under an assumed name and convert the gold into money far enough away that you wont be known - and even break it down into several smaller lots that you exchange in different places, then come back and use the money to buy up the surrounding land. Since no-one knows about the gold, and if you're smart you'll doing your land purchasing through lawyers or front companies so it doesn't all look like one person, you should be able to buy it up for practically nothing even if you throw in an extra ten percent or so to speed up the deal. Then hire in some labourers to mine your land and retire early as one of the richest men in the western United States.