Discovery

In the early 1840s, California was a distant outpost that only a handful of Americans had seen. The sleepy port that would become San Francisco had just a few hundred residents.

One of the wealthiest people in the region was John Sutter--an affable Swiss immigrant who came to California in 1839, intent on building his own private empire. Sutter soon built a fort, amassed 12,000 head of cattle, and took on hundreds of workers. His most prolific crop was debt. He owed money to creditors as far away as Russia. But Sutter was a man with a dream; a dream of a vast agricultural domain that he would control.

By the mid 1840s, more and more Americans were trickling into California by wagon and ship. Sutter welcomed the newcomers--he saw them as subjects for his self-styled kingdom. But Sutter had no idea that the trickle would become a flood--a deluge of humanity that would destroy his dream.
Sutter's undoing began 50 miles northeast of his fort on the American River. In late 1847, James Marshall and about 20 men were sent to the river by Sutter to build a sawmill--to provide lumber for Sutter's growing ranch. The sawmill was nearly complete when a glint of something caught Marshall's eye. It was January 24th, 1848.

James Marshall

"I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another."

 

After making the greatest find in the history of the West, Marshall and the other workers went back to work. But they kept stumbling upon more gold.

Still in disbelief, Marshall took samples back to Sutter's Fort. Sutter and Marshall tested the shiny metal as best they could--a tattered encyclopedia gave them clues. It was gold, they concluded--but neither man was happy about it. Sutter was building an agricultural fiefdom--he didn't want the competition that gold-seekers might bring. And Marshall had a sawmill to build--gold hunters would just get in his way. So they made a pact to keep the discovery a secret.

But it wasn't long before stories of gold filtered into the surrounding countryside. Yet there was no race to the American River. The news of Marshall's gold was just another fantastic tale--too unlikely to be believed.

The gold rush needed a booster, and Sam Brannan was the man. A San Francisco merchant, Brannan was a skilled craftsman of hype. Eventually, the gold rush would make him the richest person in California--but Sam Brannan never mined for gold.
He had a different scheme--a plan he set into motion by running through the streets of San Francisco shouting about Marshall's discovery. As proof, Brannan held up a bottle of gold dust. It was a masterstroke that would spark the rush for gold--and make Brannan rich.

Brannan keenly understood the laws of supply and demand. His wild run through San Francisco came just after he had purchased every pick axe, pan and shovel in the region. A metal pan that sold for twenty cents a few days earlier, was now available from Brannan for fifteen dollars. In just nine weeks he made thirty-six thousand dollars.

The Journey

The departing gold-seekers faced an immediate problem. California was a long way from home. There was no railroad to whisk them west; no river to float them to California. Instead, the journey would be a painful test of endurance.

There were two miserable choices. The sea route around the tip of South America often took more than six months. But the alternative wasn't much better--a 2,000 mile walk across the barren American outback. The sea route was favored by gold seekers from the eastern states. Seasickness was rampant; food was full of bugs, or worse-rancid. Water stored for months in a ship's hold was almost impossible to drink. And then there was the boredom--months and months at sea with nothing to do, except dream about gold. The wait was intolerable.

To satisfy the growing thirst for speed, a quicker route was soon employed across Panama. It seemed like a logical shortcut. But traversing the rain forests of Central America in the 1840s was an adventure in itself. Malaria and cholera were common. Those who survived to see the Pacific faced another dilemma--they were stranded. Ships to ferry them up the coast to San Francisco were rare. And so the forty-niners waited for weeks--or months, in overcrowded, disease-infested coastal towns.

For Americans who lived in the central states, there was another way west--a well-worn path carved out several years earlier: the Oregon-California Trail. The overland road was much shorter than the sea route, but it wasn't faster. Most had no idea how severe the overland journey would be.

All they could think about was gold as they plodded westward alongside covered wagons at two miles per hour--for up to six months. The first weeks on the trail took the adventurers along the Platte River, past landmarks like Chimney Rock, Courthouse Rock, and Scotts Bluffs.
Military outposts like Ft. Laramie were most important as post offices--places to send letters to eager families back home--heartfelt letters of optimism and hope.

Scottsbluff, Nebraska

Anonymous 49er:
"The reports of the gold regions are as encouraging here as they were back in Massachusetts. Just imagine yourself seeing me return with $10,000 to $100,000."

As they pushed further west, optimism was replaced by fear of the Native American tribes along the Trail. But after the initial contact, fear often turned to friendliness.

The real danger of the overland journey wasn't Native Americans--it was water. That is, the lack of water. The last few hundred miles were especially difficult.

Merrill Mattes, author "The Great Platte River Road"
"Along the Humboldt and Carson Rivers you reach a point where there is no water at all for long stretches and you would die of thirst. Your tongue would blacken and you would drop dead, and there were lots of accounts to that effect. Well, so some smart cookies back in California got wind of this and they came out with their buckets and barrels filled with water and they would sell the water for $1.00 a glass, or whatever--as much as they could get away with."

The price for water could go as high as $100 per drink. Those without money--were sometimes left to die. It was a lesson in supply and demand that would be repeated many times over in frontier California.

Collision of Cultures

The California gold rush was not merely an American happening--it was a world event. Many mines, especially in the south, were worked by foreigners who came solely for the gold. Chinese, Chileans, Mexicans, Irish, Germans, French, and Turks all sought their fortune in California.
Like their American-born counterparts, foreign miners had no intention of staying in California. Their goal was to get the gold and get home. But hauling gold out of the country was a difficult operation--bandits often preyed on foreigners. The Chinese had a unique solution.

As gold became less plentiful, resentment towards foreigners grew. Under pressure, the California legislature passed the Foreign Miners Tax in 1850, a $20 per month levy payable by every foreign miner--a tax which only fueled the growing fire of ethnic resentment.
Many foreign miners refused to pay the tax and left the country. Others, like the Chinese, stayed in California, in mining--or in more traditional jobs in the metropolitan culture that was developing. Although there were ethnic skirmishes, most of these new residents thrived. If you had something to contribute, California would take you in. Almost instantly, the state had assembled the most diverse ethnic culture in the world.

Yet one ethnic group did not do well--the original residents of California's gold country: Native Americans. Uninterested in gold or in mining--they were almost immediately annihilated.

African Americans fared surprisingly well. Southerners who brought their slaves to help in the digging quickly found out that 49ers didn't take kindly to that idea--but it wasn't because of an opposition to slavery. The miners had quite a different reason for objecting.

In 1850, California was admitted to the Union as a free state--adding to eastern tensions that would lead to the Civil War. But few in California cared much about the slavery question. There was still but one thing on the minds of nearly everyone here--money. And money was becoming harder and harder to find.

San Francisco

The focus of change--and growth--in gold rush California was the once-tiny hamlet of San Francisco. Only a few hundred people lived there in the 1840s, but the discovery of gold brought unimaginable growth. The city soon averaged 30 new houses and two murders each day. A plot of San Francisco real estate that cost $16 in 1847, sold for $45,000 just 18 months later. In less than two years the city burned to the ground six times. But there was always money to rebuild it bigger and better. Nearly a half-billion dollars worth of gold passed through the city in the 1850s--and everyone wanted their share.

Newly-rich miners regularly came down from the hills to the new metropolis of San Francisco. They were hungry for fun--any kind of fun.

Samuel Clemens
"They were rough in those times! They fairly reveled in gold, whiskey, fights, and fandangoes, and were unspeakably happy. The honest miner raked in from a hundred to a thousand dollars out of his claim a day, and what with the gambling dens and other entertainments, he hadn't a cent the next morning if he had any type of luck."

Thousands of merchant profiteers were more than willing to help separate a miner from his gold--merchants like Sam Brannan. By the mid 1850s, the man who started it all owned much of downtown San Francisco. By 1856, his income was nearly a half-million dollars. Brannan was the richest man in California, he even issued his own currency. Sam Brannan represented the new California--bold, opportunistic, entrepreneurial.

Gold was a magnet that brought people--dynamic, energetic people--from all over the world. This vibrant mix quickly turned San Francisco into a cultural mecca, with theater, opera, and more newspapers than any city but London. The city became the envy of the world--thanks to a collision of cultures that became its greatest strength.