DISCOVER
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

It has the power to set hearts racing and to cause otherwise sane people to abandon job, hearth, home, and family to rush off to an unknown place based on hearsay and rumor.

1848 - THE YEAR GOLD WAS DISCOVERED IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

That's exactly what happened during the California Gold Rush when Sam Brannan issued his now-famous cry -

- as he marched through the streets of 1848 San Francisco.

Brannan's motivation for sharing this extraordinary news? He'd stocked his store in New Helvetia (which is now historic Sutter's Fort) with all the shovels and other mining supplies he could get his hands on!

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD

It all began on a dreary day in January, 1848 - the 24th, to be exact. James Marshall was the foreman of John Sutter's lumber mill project along the South Fork of the American River (now, the site is the historic little town of Coloma, home of Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park).

While inspecting the tailrace (along with oft-forgotten Peter Wimmer), he spotted what looked like gold pieces in the water. He collected the samples and took them to Sutter for testing - not only had Marshall discovered gold, but Mr. Sutter determined it to be gold of the highest quality ("at least 23 carats").

Word spread and before long, masses of people from all over the world were forging new routes to the California goldfields in the hopes of getting to California as quickly as they could and acquiring overnight riches. The California Gold Rush was officially on!

Not surprisingly, neither James Marshall nor John Sutter wanted word of Marshall's find to get around, but not for the reason you might suspect.

Sutter had planned to construct an agricultural empire in California (in fact, the lumber from the mill was needed to complete his flour mill expansion), and he didn't want his plans ruined by a bunch of
gold-grubbing prospectors overrunning his land in their efforts to get rich quick.

But even in the scantily-populated California of 1848, it was impossible to keep such a find under wraps.

Within two weeks of the discovery, the cat was out of the bag: from the workers at the mill, word spread to the men working at Sutter's Fort and - as Sutter had feared would happen - his men began to abandon their posts in favor of the easy riches they envisioned finding at the mill.

The California Gold Rush was on!

The earliest gold-seekers were the Argonauts during the summer of 1848. They came first from Sutter's Fort, then from San Francisco (the California Star - owned by Sam Brannan, who was still spreading the word - called San Francisco a "ghost town" the day after Brannan's excursion with his vial of gold and his provocative cry).

By summer's end prospectors were arriving from outside California: Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, Mexico, South America. Everyone was finding gold, they were finding it easily, and there was lots of it!

Word continued to spread. Nearly 90,000 newcomers from all over the world had come to California - most seeking gold - when 1949 ended. These new prospectors came to be called 49ers, a term that was derived from the year 1849!

Sutter's Fort was the jumping off place for getting to the goldfields. But how did they get to Sutter's Fort?

• Those who arrived in San Francisco came Around the Horn

• Having arrived in San Francisco, they still had to make their way to the new city of Sacramento (where Sutter's Fort was located) by way of the Sacramento River

• Then there were those who came Overland by Covered Wagon - arriving more or less directly at Sutter's Fort

Once they arrived in what we now call Old Sacramento, these Argonauts, these 49ers, rushed off willy-nilly, without a clue in the world about how to find gold! Heck, they didn't even know what it looked like!

But they learned as they followed what was to become Highway 49 (the Gold Rush Trail).

They learned what to look for and where to look for it. They learned about gold panning & they invented new gold mining methods. Some became rich, others were broken by the experience. But regardless of personal effect on individual people, the California Gold Rush changed the world forever!

Continue to Discover the California Gold Rush here:

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