"Gold! Gold!": The Story of the Gold Rush

There is a particular kind of shock that comes with finding something you were never looking for. When John Marshall, a carpenter and sawmill operator working for John Sutter in what is now Coloma, California, went to work on January 24, 1848, he had no idea that he would make one of the most important discoveries of the 19th century. It was early in the morning, and it was part of Marshall’s job to check the sawmill before the day’s work began. Because the sawmill was powered by water, this meant he also checked the South Fork American River that ran below the mill. As he peered into the water, he spotted something small, no larger than a pea, glinting at him from the riverbed. Marshall would later say, “I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold.”

Upon his discovery, Marshall went in search of John Sutter in his office at the mill. Sutter recounted the story to a magazine many years later:

It was a rainy afternoon when Mr. Marshall arrived at my office in the Fort, very wet... He told me then that he had some important and interesting news which he wished to communicate secretly to me, and wished me to go with him to a place where we should not be disturbed, and where no listeners could come and hear what we had to say... Marshall took a rag from his pocket, showing me the yellow metal; he had about two ounces of it... I declared this to be gold of the finest quality, of at least 23 carats.

Sutter and Marshall tried to keep their discovery of gold a secret, but despite their best efforts, in just a few months the news broke. Much like the wildfires of the West, word of what Marshall found in the river began spreading far and wide, and the Gold Rush was underway.

“GOLD! GOLD!”

Though the term “rush” might conjure the image of a stampede of people crossing the country, the craze for gold mostly affected Californians in the beginning. Bankers, doctors, lawyers, soldiers, and workers of every type left their jobs, and sometimes their wives and families, to go search for the precious metal. Even sailors abandoned their ships, leaving them to sit empty in the San Francisco harbor. The newspaper The Californian published an article on May 29, 1848, saying, “The whole country... resounds with the sordid cry of gold! GOLD! GOLD! — while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected.” Word further spread, and sure enough, by 1849, people were coming to California from all over the United States as well as other countries. Approximately 40,000 people flooded into the state that year alone, earning gold prospectors the nickname the “Forty-Niners.” The search for gold quickly became likened to a sickness. The senselessness of the pursuit to get rich fast was referred to as “gold fever.” As is the case with many diseases, it proved difficult to contain.

Getting to California

California lured people with the promise of gold, but for those on the east coast of the United States, making the journey west was not easy. They had three choices. First, they could travel by boat down the east coast to Panama, walk 35 miles through the jungle to the Pacific Ocean, and then take another ship up to California. The second choice was another sea voyage, but further south around Cape Horn (the southernmost point in South America), and then back north through the Pacific Ocean to California. It took four to eight months but was safer than the jungle route. Those who traveled to California by ship were not finished with their journey when they made landfall. They then walked for days beside wagons filled with their equipment and pulled by teams of oxen. In the third option, gold seekers could cross the United States by wagon, taking three to seven months.

Once gold seekers finally reached a spot good for prospecting, they had to set up camp. These camps were collections of tents and cabins, with many prospectors living in one small space. The material comforts of home were nowhere to be found. Sanitation in the camps was poor, and their diets lacked important nutrients. They often became ill, falling victim to diseases like tuberculosis, pneumonia, and typhoid fever. There was no law enforcement, so crimes like stealing and murder were common, as well as gambling and drinking. Even the promise of nearby gold was not enough to sustain some prospectors in the face of such conditions.

Looking for Their Fortunes

Prospectors used several methods to search for gold. At first, most people “panned” for gold. They would use a shallow pan to scoop up water from the river and then swirl it around in the pan. Heavy particles of gold would stay in the bottom and the lighter particles of sand would fall out over the sides. Though it required little in terms of resources, this method was time consuming and would be replaced by building a simple wooden “rocker.” Prospectors could empty many pails of water into the rocker and rock it to wash out the sand. Because this worked best with several miners working together as a team, individual miners began forming companies.

Eventually, though, there was little gold left to be found by panning or rocking. Prospectors began using pickaxes to dig shafts and tunnels where they might find veins of gold in rock. Gold could also be found in the gravel left from long-gone streams. To that end, miners invented hydraulic mining to divert the water from a nearby river or stream into a hose with high enough pressure to blast the gravel and wash it down from hillsides. This allowed them to find gold hidden within the gravel. Though lucrative, this method polluted nearby rivers and proved to be extremely damaging to the environment. Hydraulic mining was banned in 1884 as a result.

Did Anyone Really Get Rich?

By the mid-1850s, most of the surface gold was gone in California, and big mining companies took over. The days of the individual miner finding a fortune in gold were over. But during the years of the Forty-Niners, an amazing amount of gold was pulled out of the rivers, streams, and ground. Overall, between 1849 and 1852, the amount of gold found amounted to a worth of $207 million dollars, the equivalent of almost $8 billion dollars today.

Much of the growth of California and the expansion of the West can be traced back to the Gold Rush. Of those who came to California, many made enough money from gold to live more comfortable lives. But others would go home empty-handed. Some would never even make it back home, becoming casualties of illness or accidents instead. Though many prospectors’ dreams of striking rich quite literally did not “pan out,” the hopefulness of this time period and the role it played in U.S. history will not soon be forgotten.