~The Discovery~

~The Discovery~

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People panned for gold in rivers and streams.

On January 24, 1848, a week before California became part of the united States, a carpenter named James Marshall made a huge discovery.  Marshall was building a sawmill in Sutterville, California.  He noticed glittery pebbles at his feet.  Marshall thought it might be gold.  But he had to be sure.  First, he bit into the nugget.  Seeing his teeth marks in it, he knew that whatever it was, it was soft like gold.  Then Marshall hammered it with a stone.  It flattened out just like real gold.  Then Marshall placed the nugget into a kettle of boiling lye.  He knew that real gold would be unharmed by the chemicals in the lye.  He was thrilled that the nugget had not tarnished at all.  Now Marshall was certain that he had discovered gold.

News of the discovery spread quickly.  It started the largest gold rush in American history.  When James Marshall discovered gold, the population of settlers in California was about 14,000.  By the end of 1849, the population was nearly 100,000.  By 1852, the population was up to 250,000.  Forty-niners, as they came to be called, came by ship and wagon train from the East, the Midwest, and the South.  They came from other countries as well.  Many, about 25,000, came from China, but gold-seekers also came from Germany, Mexico, Ireland, and Turkey.

Although most of the miners did not become rich, the economy of California grew.  The people who made the most money during the gold rush were not the miners.  In fact, very few miners did become rich.  It was the merchants who sold goods and services to the miners who made the most money.  There are still companies in business today that started during the gold rush.  Levi Strauss made money selling work pants to the miners.  Today, people still buy jeans from his company.  Henry Wells and John Fargo opened a bank in San Francisco.  The company Wells Fargo still exists today.

California’s gold discovery days are not over.  About 30,000 kilograms of gold are removed from the ground each year.  And it is estimated by the California Department of Conservation that about 90 percent of California’s gold still has not been mined.  Gold mining is still popular in California.

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