California is known as the Golden State, and many of the first Californians arrived there in search of real gold. They were participants in the California Gold Rush, which began in 1848, two years before the state was established, and ended in 1855. The Gold Rush brought about three hundred thousand people to California both from other parts of the US and from other countries, and resulted in the discovery of tens of billions of dollars worth of gold. However, while the Gold Rush made a few people extremely rich, the majority of people who came here made very little money and had a difficult life.
The Gold Rush began on 24 January, 1848, when a man called James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California. Today, you can visit the site where this historic discovery was made as well as the site where Marshall is buried. Founded as Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in 1942, it includes much of the town of Coloma and features a monument to commemorate James Marshall, original buildings from the Gold Rush era and a museum, where you can learn all about the Gold Rush and the enormous impact it made on the state. The 576-acre [2.3 km2] park also offers visitors the opportunity to hike, picnic, take a boat ride on the American River, or even pan for gold.

MASS MIGRATION

To find out more, Speak Up contacted Ed Allen, a park historian at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. We began by asking him what made James Marshall’s discovery so unique that it triggered the mass migration of individuals to the state of California.

Ed Allen (American accent): Francisco Lopez found gold twice in Southern California prior to this. The problem was that there was no Gold Rush to California because California was owned by Mexico, and you had to be a Mexican citizen to be here. But when gold was discovered here, they found gold everywhere and in massive quantities. The president of the United States, James K. Polk, addressed the nation and told the nation about this gold discovery. This played right into his hands by the way because he was a manifest destiny president. He saw this as an opportunity to get people to settle on all of this land that the government has just acquired from Mexico. “Let’s get people out here and let’s get this country settled.” As they moved along, they found that there was gold in all of these places. There was gold in Nevada, there was gold in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, so it just brought more and more people west.

HARD CASH

Find a bit of gold today and you might wonder what to do with it. Back then though it was currency, as Allen explains.

Ed Allen: You could come to California and you could literally pick money up off the ground that you could spend in any store in the world: the universal currency. So, if you lived back east, you worked in a factory, you made basically a dollar a day, and that’s for like a twelve-hour day. The reports coming back from California were stating that people were finding on average an ounce [28.3 gr] of gold per person per day. Now, an ounce of gold is $20. You’ll see in the literature $16 an ounce, that’s because the gold was discounted, because gold is never found in a pure form, it’s always an alloy. So, you are now faced with a dilemma. You’re working for a dollar a day and you know you can go to California and possibly make $20 a day. This is the biggest decision of your life. It’s going to cost you money to get there, you’re going to have to outfit yourself for the trip, or you’re going to have to get on the boat and spend six months on the water to get here, but are you going to miss this opportunity? That’s the question. So, ninety thousand people decided they’re going to California in 1849. Another ninety thousand in 1850.

445 The Gold Rush Cordon

PROS AND CONS

And in America, the discovery of gold benefitted the individual lucky enough to find it.

Ed Allen: This massive influx of gold into the country created a new economy. It raised the standard of living for the entire country. Just take this into consideration: gold is found in Mexico, Chile, Peru..., but the people that find that gold don’t get to keep that gold. That’s the government’s gold.  Here in California, it’s totally different. If you find gold, it’s your gold and you get to do whatever you want with it. Literally anybody with a strong back and a weak mind could make just as much money as anybody else, going out there and digging in that dirt. Now, it didn’t last for long. We estimate that in the first year, we were finding an ounce of gold per person per day. The next year, 1850, they were probably finding more like a half an ounce of gold per person per day. 1851, a quarter of an ounce per person per day. After 1852-53, you’re pretty much making wages. If you got here that late, you probably shouldn’t have come. There’s a high death rate. A lot of polluted water, bad food, not good accommodations... there’s a lot of suffering here. So, you probably would have been better off staying at home. But those first few people that were here in 1848, if they were prudent, they certainly made good money here.

KEEP LOOKING

So, is there still gold to be found in California?

Ed Allen: We have only found 10 to 15 per cent of the gold in California. Every time we have a major storm around here, more gold will wash out of the mountains and down in to the creeks and rivers. And once you see [it], once you actually see a piece of gold, you will never forget it. There’s stuff called ‘fool’s gold’ out there but once you see a real one, that’s all over with. You know gold from then on.