The California Gold Rush

In 1848 James W. Marshall found gold next to the newly built Sutter's Mill. This is what started the largest gold rush in American history.

John Sutter decided he wanted to build a mill in Coloma, California. This decision changed the nation. Both economically and where people lived. When news spread about the gold that was found near John Sutter's mill, people around the nation rushed to “strike it rich!”

There were three different ways to get to California from the East at that time. One route was the Oregon Trail to the California Trail. This took around 4-6 months just to get from the East coast to the West coast.

Oregon Trail and California Trail.

The second way was sailing in a boat all the way around South America and back up to the West coast. This took around 6-8 months.

Sailing route around Cape Horn

The third way was the shortest. You sailed on a ship to the Panama Isthmus, then you walked across the Isthmus, then you sailed the rest of the way. This took around 1 month. But unfortunately this route wasn't created until later into the gold rush.

The Isthmus route.

But what happened when you arrived in California? Well sadly most of the people didn't find huge amounts of gold. But some of them got lucky and “struck it rich.”

In 1849 President James K. Polk gave a speech telling the people that the gold rush was real. So it took a whole year for news of gold to reach the President! Talk about slow moving news. But when everyone knew, it was madness. People flocked to California by the thousands. In 1848 there were only around 800 people living there. In 1860 there were over 380,000 people living there. That is a 47,400% increase! In twelve years!

What about the money? How much money was made during the gold rush? Well for the first few years after 1849 the amount of money a year increased until it peaked in 1852 at about $81 million dollars! And that is without the change for inflation! But in years following the amount decreased and in 1857 it was only $45 million and shrinking. But that is still a lot of money. That's over $1.2 billion in today's money! The total amount of gold found during the rush was more than 750,000 pounds of gold! That is around $2 billion! That is just under $55 billion in today's money.