In January 1848 gold was found near John Sutter’s sawmill in California. The discovery started the California gold rush, during which over 300,000 people from all over the world came to California to become rich. Although most of them were Americans and European immigrants who travelled to California overland from the eastern coast, many came from South America and Asia by ship. When they got to California the 49ers, as they were called, created their own camps with tents and huts.
At the beginning of the gold rush the gold nuggets lay on the ground and just had to be picked up. Gold found in rivers was panned. Towards the end of the 1950s most gold that lay on the surface had already been mined. New companies started using machines to excavate gold and separate it from rock. Many people became millionaires almost overnight, but other gold diggers left California without having found anything.
The gold rush had a great influence on the American west. The population of California grew very quickly and in 1850 it became an American state. Before the gold rush people lived in small towns spread across the state. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of only 200 people to a booming gold town of over 30,000 by 1850. When gold diggers arrived they had to build roads and other infrastructure throughout the area. The gold rush helped complete the first transcontinental railway in the middle of the century to get people to the west coast as fast as possible.
At the start of the gold rush California was a lawless state. Whoever found gold could keep it and had the right to dig it out of the earth. While only few people became really rich digging for gold, California attracted thousands of people who set up various kinds of businesses. One of them was Levi Strauss who began selling jeans in San Francisco in the 1850s. Others opened up stores and other shops for miners.
Gold turned out to be valuable for the settlers in California. Nuggets were exchanged for goods that miners needed. Foreigners often sent gold back home. New banks emerged that exchanged gold for banknotes. Shortly after gold had been found the first gold coins were minted.
The California gold rush also had many negative impacts. Native Americans, who lived in areas where gold was discovered, were driven away by white settlers. They lost much of their habitat and food supply because fish were poisoned and animals killed.
The “California dream” became closely associated with the gold rush. Immigrants travelled to the Golden State to seek their fortune and become rich, as many others had done before them. In the following decades California was turned into a land of farmers, movie makers and businessmen who invested in new technology. In the 20th century Silicon Valley, America’s high-tech centre emerged.
