California gold rush

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In US history, the influx of prospectors to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, following the discovery of gold in the American River by US surveyor James Marshall in January 1848. Within two years over 100,000 people had flooded into California in the hopes of making their fortunes. San Francisco was transformed from a coastal village to the largest city in the West. The miners of 1849, known as the '49ers, forged pioneering wagon trails over the Great Plains and through the Rocky Mountains. Although the rush was over by 1856, the event had opened up the American West.

Mining community
Following Marshall's discovery in 1848 a gradual flow of miners entered California, both from the rest of the USA as well as from other nations such as China and Mexico. Families were left behind and jobs forgotten. Many of the prospectors endured difficult and often dangerous journeys, either by the long overland route across America or the hazardous sea voyage around Cape Horn, South America and up the Pacific coast. The vast majority were young men, and this had a profound impact on the nature of the towns that were set up for the miners. By the time the main flow of American miners arrived in the late summer of 1849, the towns were already places of crime and all imaginable vice. The towns were given names such as Cool and You Bet.

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