California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush started when James Wilson Marshall was building a water-powered sawmill (for John Sutter) in 1848. When he finished building the mill, he went to the river to fetch some water. He saw some shiny little flakes of gold in the river. He immediately went to tell John, and they tried to keep it a secret. But word soon got out, and the gold rush started. It was 1849 when the Gold Rush started. People who came to California for gold were called forty-niners because they came in the year 1849. Some of them became rich but most did not.

Some people started selling things, mostly to miners at first. Some even became rich, famous, and politically powerful. Levi Strauss was one of them. He invented and sold jeans made from strong denim. Most merchants, farmers and other suppliers merely became richer than most miners. Sometimes a woman could earn more than her mining husband.

The California Gold Rush ended in 1855. Many gold miners returned to their home country because gold was harder to find than before; others found other work around the area.

California Gold Rush Media

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  California goldfields (red) in the Sierra Nevada and northern CaliforniaTemplate:Image reference needed

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  1855 illustration of James W. Marshall, discoverer of gold at Sutter's Mill

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  Merchant ships fill San Francisco Bay, 1850–51

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  "Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California", c. 1850

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  Joaquín Murrieta, called the "Robin Hood of California", was a notorious outlaw during the Gold Rush.

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  Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, during the Gold Rush, 1851

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  Protecting the Settlers, an illustration by JR Browne for his work The Indians of California (1864)

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  Forty-niner panning for gold