History of the California Gold Rush: How It Created the State

Clipper ship for California ad. Image: Wikipedia

HISTORY OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald reported news of the California Gold Rush along the American East Coast.

It was not new news to those further West, as the gold rush had started in January and was publicized in San Francisco in March.

However, the New York Herald was then the most popular and profitable newspaper in the US. By the dawn of the American Civil War, the newspaper claimed a circulation of 84,000 copies and called itself “the most widely circulated journal in the world.” In any event, the news of the gold rush reached a much larger audience than before and spread the gold fever much wider.

What was the result of this news on San Francisco, the gold miners, and California itself? 

Gold Discovery

California Gold Rush relief map. Image: Geology for Investors

James Marshall was installing a water-powered sawmill along the American River in Coloma, California, when his carpenter discovered gold flakes in the stream bed in North-central California at Sutter’s Mill on January 24, 1848.

Despite trying to keep the discovery a secret, the news spread in all directions — initially to Oregon, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, Chile, Peru, and as far away as China.

By mid-June, about three-quarters of the male population of San Francisco had left for the goldfields. By the end of 1848, around 20,000 had come to California to seek their fortune. Ultimately, about 300,000 people from all over the world came to California.

The military governor, Colonel Richard B. Mason, toured the goldfields and reported: two miners on Weber Creek gathered $17,000 of gold in just seven days; six miners with fifty Native American Indians took out 273 pounds of gold; sales at Samuel Brannan‘s goldfield merchandise store – a San Francisco entrepreneur – had totaled $36,000 in the three months of May, June, and July.

He became the wealthiest man in California by opening the first supply stores in Sacramento and other locations throughout the goldfields. It was Gold Fever.

Gold Rush 49ers

Gold Rush Steam Ship ad. Image: Wikipedia

By 1849, the number of those coming for the Gold Rush had grown from 20,000 to over 100,000. These “49ers” (who lent their name to the San Francisco football team) passed through what came to be called the “Golden Gate” of the San Francisco Bay.

The Golden Gate Bridge, which now spans San Francisco to Marin County, gets its name from that Golden Gate. Prospectors could make a fortune — nuggets might be found lying on the ground or in streams — if they came early. Some 750,000 pounds, or billions of dollars’ worth of gold, was extracted from the mining area, with extraction peaking in 1852.

San Francisco and the Gold Rush

Gold prospecting at Ivalo River, 1898. Image: Wikipedia

San Francisco exploded from a small village of 800 in 1848 to a boomtown of 50,000 within five years. Within 25 years, the city’s population reached 150,000. Merchants’ fortunes increased as they supplied goods, transportation, and entertainment to the prospectors heading to the “Mother Lode.”

Initially coming by sea, these Argonauts, referring to the classical story of Jason and the Argonauts seeking the Golden Fleece, would round Cape Horn at the bottom of South America in 5–8 months from the East. Half of the fortune seekers came by sea.

The Isthmus of Panama might shorten that route, but the canal had not yet been constructed, and some of the journey was over land. Otherwise, the trek was across the continent along what was called the California Trail. In the years after the Civil War ended, transcontinental railroads connected the East and West coasts.

San Francisco: Ship Graveyard

“Forest of Masts” panorama, taken early in 1851. The view looks east from approximately Portsmouth Plaza with Rincon Point on the right and Yerba Buena Island on the left. Image: National Park Service

So many ships came to San Francisco bringing 49ers that scores of ships were abandoned at the docks. Some were converted into hotels, restaurants, and saloons, with the masts used to prop the ships above the mud. 

Converted Ship display at the Maritime Museum of San Francisco. Author’s photo

The San Francisco Peninsula was windy and lacked natural resources and fresh water, but it was an excellent port with its large bay. Quickly, warehouses, ironworks, shipyards, and exchange houses were built. Timber and iron, salvaged from the ships, were used to build the city. Before the railroads in the 19th century, shipping was the main mode of transportation for towns north of San Francisco.

Original San Francisco coastline, 1851. Courtesy of the Maritime Museum of San Francisco. Author’s photo

There were so many ships that arrived in San Francisco ports in 1849 that their masts rose like a forest offshore. The small “bays” along the north and east sides of the San Francisco peninsula soon filled up with these derelict ships. Examples include:

• Yerba Buena Cove is home to the current Embarcadero and was filled with over 800 ships. Excavation has revealed the resting place of over 40 ships. The iconic Transamerica Pyramid was built on the edge of that cove.

   

  

  Yerba Buena Cove Ships by Michael Warner et al., 2017. Image: San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, National Park Service

   

• Mission Bay was filled with ships and eventually became reclaimed land, forming the present coastline of San Francisco. It is now home to the University of California, San Francisco Mission Bay Campus, the Chase Center Arena, and OpenAI’s offices. It is across from Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.

   

  

  1852 US Coast Survey map of Mission Bay w/Mission Plank Road, courtesy of FoundSF.org

Subsequently, fishing and whaling operations extended from San Francisco across the Pacific, from Alaska to Peru. By the 1880s, San Francisco replaced New England as the American whaling capital.

California and the Gold Rush

Seal of California. Image: Wikipedia

The gold rush essentially created California. The first Federal census in 1860 counted over 300,000 residents; the non-Native population had exploded since before the Gold Rush: from roughly 14,000 in 1848 to over 300,000 by the 1860 census.

Lawmaking, government, and civic improvements occurred rapidly. Days after discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – which ended the Mexican-American War – left California in the possession of the United States. A constitution was written in 1849, and California became a free state in 1850 (without slavery).

Seal of University of California, Berkeley. Image: Wikipedia

The University of California at Berkeley – named after Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley – was started as a land-grant university in 1868. Its mascot is the Golden Bear, and its colors are blue and gold.

And while it was long known by this name, it was not until 1968 that California was formally designated “The Golden State.”

By the way, the state seal motto, “Eureka,” is the Greek word εὕρηκα, meaning “I have found (it),” from the story of the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He yelled out this word upon discovering that the water level in his bath had risen to the level represented by the volume of water displaced by his submerged body.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com