During the California Gold Rush, miners extracted more than seven hundred fifty thousand pounds of gold. That’s about twelve million ounces, and currently an ounce is about one thousand two hundred sixty USD, which, if my math is right, means that the gold from the Gold Rush is worth $15,120,000,00. Yeah, soak that in.
The whole thing starts in January, on the 24th of the year 1848. Close to what is now Coloma, CA, John Sutter had hired men to construct a saw mill. One man, James Marshall, noticed gold bits in the runoff water. He immediately told Sutter, and they swore an oath of secrecy.
In spite of this promise, news of the gold got out. The first to arrive were those from San Francisco (Thanks to one Samuel Brannon parading the streets with a jar of gold from Sutter’s Creek), Oregon, and Hawaii(then known as the Sandwich Islands). While it did take a while (NO INTERNET) to get to the East, it did. Eventually. The New York Herald published an article on the discovery in August. The story became so large that President James Polk announced the positive results of a report by Colonel Richard Mason in his inaugural address, causing the knowledge of the gold to spread to practically everyone.
Now, it’s 1849. Tens of thousands of 49ers (as in the year they set out) left for California, borrowing money and mortgaging their properties to pay for the journey. Migrants from ’49 numbered close to eighty thousand.
At first, gold was found real easy like. Nuggets could be found practically anywhere you stepped, if you sifted through a few inches of dirt. Panning in streams and creek-beds was a preferred method, as the gold would drift along in the current and basically come to you.
Many mining towns popped up in California, filled with stores carrying mining equipment, provisions, ropes, picks, shovels… Anything that might have been needed. Many schools, churches, and stores started to show up. Bars, hotels, warehouses and such things would be built around mining areas. Business was good.
Now, the amount of gold has started dwindling. It’s harder and harder to find. New prospectors are still showing up. They have to work harder, longer hours to acquire as much gold as they had been before, but even so, what they were finding was greatly decreased form what it had been at the start. Needing places to settle, many miners displaced, or even killed, many Native Americans. Many spent much money in the hopes of becoming rich off gold, but never found any, and drifted off into debt or poverty.
As The Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo (which officially ended the war) didn’t go into effect until Feb 2nd, after the gold was discovered, technically for a bit it was legally Mexico’s property. After, the area was under control of the US Military, although no troops ever actually walked the gold fields. The areas were self policed, meaning any rules might as well have been crap. Violent, drunken bandit men assaulted many, stole from many, and killed many.
Gold mining reached peak in 1852, when close to $81mil was mined. Afterwards was when the decline began. Many ex-miners, still miners, farmers, and other such people continued settling the area. By 1860, the population was about 380,000 people.
the problems not the problem 