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The California gold rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. [1] The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. [2]
One of them was George Hearst, the father of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. By the time he died, George Hearst was worth $19 million, but interestingly he didn't prospect for gold when he arrived in California.
- Sutter’s Mill
- Gold Fever Strikes
- Polk Spreads Gold Fever
- The ’49ers Come to California
- Gold Rush Politics
- California's Mines
- Impact of The Gold Rush
On January 24, 1848, James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter originally from New Jersey, found flakes of gold in the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Coloma, California. At the time, Marshall was working to build a water-powered sawmill owned by John Sutter, a German-born Swiss citizen and founder of a colony of Nueva Helve...
Though Marshall and Sutter tried to keep news of the discovery under wraps, word got out, and by mid-March at least one newspaper was reporting that large quantities of gold were being turned up at Sutter’s Mill. Though the initial reaction in San Franciscowas disbelief, storekeeper Sam Brannan set off a frenzy when he paraded through town displayi...
When the news reached the East Coast, press reports were initially skeptical. Gold fever kicked off nationwide in earnest, however, after December 1848, when President James K. Polkannounced the positive results of a report made by Colonel Richard Mason, California’s military governor, in his inaugural address. As Polk wrote, “The accounts of abund...
Throughout 1849, people around the United States (mostly men) with gold fever borrowed money, mortgaged their property or spent their life savings to make the arduous journey to California. In pursuit of the kind of wealth they had never dreamed of, they left their families and hometowns. In turn, women left behind took on new responsibilities such...
The Gold Rush undoubtedly sped up California’s admission to the Union as the 31st state. In late 1849, California applied to enter the Union with a constitution that barred the Southern system of racial slavery, provoking a crisis in Congress between proponents of slavery and anti-slavery politicians. According to the Compromise of 1850, proposed b...
After 1850, the surface gold in California largely disappeared, even as miners continued to arrive. Mining had always been difficult and dangerous labor, and striking it rich required good luck as much as skill and hard work. Moreover, the average daily take for an independent miner working with his pick and shovel had by then sharply decreased fro...
New mining methods and the population boom in the wake of the California Gold Rush permanently altered the landscape of California. The technique of hydraulic mining brought enormous profits but destroyed much of the region’s landscape. Dams designed to supply water to mine sites in summer altered the course of rivers away from farmland, while sedi...
- Missy Sullivan
- 3 min
John Augustus Sutter (1803-1880) was a born in Germany but grew up in Switzerland. Fleeing debt and bankruptcy, Sutter eventually migrated to California in 1839, and was given a land grant along the Sacramento River. He built a fort and established a colony called Nueva Helvetia (New Switzerland).
The discovery of gold in1848 unleashed the largest migration in United States history and drew people from a dozen countries to form a multi-ethnic society in California.
- American Experience
Sutter's Fort, from 1839 to about 1848, was a major agricultural and trade colony in California, often welcoming and assisting California Trail travelers to California. Most of the settlers at, or near, Sutter's Fort were new immigrants from the United States.
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Henry Wells and William Fargo saw an opportunity to provide financial services to gold seekers and started a bank, Wells Fargo & Co.; Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, identified miners’ need for sturdy clothing and created canvas pants that would withstand the punishing hours involved in gold mining; and American humorist, Mark Twain, got his s...
