The Shining Story of the Gold Rush

Written by: Anna Pafenberg

California was established as an American territory in between the eras of the Louisiana purchase and the United States Civil War. Many residents wonder how the large territory owned by the Spanish, became the economic super child of the United States in the mid-1800’s. The answer is simple, gold! 

On January 24th, 1848, James Wilson Marshall found gold on the property of John Sutter. Sutter had men including John working on his Saw Mill in Coloma, California. At the sight of gold, Sutter showed his fellow workmen the small shiny flecks he found in the dirt. The history of California was forever changed after that moment. As soon as people heard that California had gold practically flowing in its rivers, thousands made their journey to the Golden State. The population rose from 14,000 to 100,000 from 1848 to 1849. By 1852, the population was 250,000. A couple days after Marshall found gold, the Mexican American War ended and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. This solidified California as territory of the United States of America.

The majority of men in San Francisco abandoned their shops and day jobs in order to search for gold in the mountains and rivers. When word got out to the rest of the world, people from nearby states like Oregon and countries like Mexico and Peru decided to take a gamble at traveling to California in search of gold. A lot of people on the East Coast however, were unsure if the reports of gold were true. People thought this was until President Polk publicly announced that the reports of gold were true. After this confirmation, thousands of men came to California. They spent their life savings and all the money they could get on a trip to California in order to hopefully strike it rich. These men were called ‘49-ers’ because there was a large influx of them in 1849. This is where the San Franciso 49-ers, the football team home to San Francisco, got their name from. The journey to California was hard and expensive. Many people would cross the entire country by land, and some would even sail around the horn of South America, all the way near Antarctica!

California owes much of its success of being a state to the influx of money. It was added to the union and there were many debates on whether slavery should be allowed there. It was decided that there would not be, but California’s economics did not need the help of unpaid labor. Soon, the amount of surface level gold dwindled, and now those stuck in California after a treacherous journey had no where to go to. However, there was a plentiful amount of wage jobs to do hydraulic mining all over the California landscape. Not much gold was found, and the Gold Rush ended around 1857.