The California gold rush gold was first discovered in California by James Wilson
Marshall at Sutter’s Mill near the city of Coloma, California. In 1848 James, a carpenter from
New Jersey, was building a sawmill for John Sutter. While doing so, he saw something shining
in the river near Sacramento, California. He and Sutter both tested the metal and found out that
they were flakes of gold. Although Sutter and Marshall tried to keep the find a secret, word
quickly got out. Word spread when Sam Brannon, a local shopkeeper, marched through town,
carrying a vial filled with gold flakes from Sutter’s Mill. Now at the time, the population of the
area was less than 1,000. In the upcoming years, the non-native population of the California
territory overgrew to some 100,000. Thousands upon thousands of travelers arrived on word of
the treasury. The journey to California was dangerous. Some traveled by sea from the East Coast
or on land along the California trail. These people became known as the 49ers.
One way to find gold was to pan for it. Miners would sink the pan into the water and
shake the dirt away through a sifter to reveal any gold. They needed a lot of equipment,
including a mining pan shovel, a pic, and food supplies. Businesses who sold this equipment to
the miners often became richer than they could ever be themselves. Miners spent more money on
buying the supplies and were never compensated through the gold that they found, but they
continued anyway. Wherever gold or silver was discovered, minors moved in and set up camp;
these would often grow into boomtowns, which would become deserted once all the right
opportunities had dried up. After all, they were only there to discover the treasury once that
opportunity is gone, so were they. Some may ask was the gold rush worth it. The answer depends
on who the question fell upon. Some people became wealthy, but most returned home empty-
handed.