Money, Money, Money! The Goal to Strike It Rich in California Nina Byas CUSH 101 November 25, 2014 Final Paper People wanted more gold; they strived for it, so they went on a quest to find it. The California Gold Rush began around 1848. It was James W. Marshall who started it all (Krensky 1). He had found pieces of gold at Sutter’s Mill in a river.
How did Railways help the westward expansion? Western railroads expanding the West connected a continent when all the investors saw were worthless sage brush, insurmountable mountains and a few scattered settlers. The building of the transcontinental western railroads brought together California with the rest of the nation was the largest single western railroad expansion. Some people maintain that the reason westward expansion was so successful for opening up the west was primarily down to the railway expansion. To the west there were thousands of miles of open fertile land having forests, mountains, rivers and plains which were inhabited by Indigenous peoples and Spanish Mexicans.
Gold Rush Oklahoma Land Rush By 1840’s slowly but surely people were entering and moving into California. However, when, in 1848, gold was discovered up by San Francisco, it changed everything (). People began to flock to the area hoping to discover their fortune in gold. Towns began to spring up with thousands of new settlers entering the area. For years this continued even as resources became less and less.
Before the gold rush occurred, many Americans weren’t interested in the state of California. It was seen as a vast wilderness occupied by Indians. Quickly after the discovery of gold, Americans began to see California in a new perspective. After John Sutter, who was at that time only a sawmill owner, came across a golden nugget in his mill, it seems as if the California Gold Rush happened overnight. The discovery spread across Newspapers which eventually landed in the hands of President James K. Polk.
The California Gold rush evoked adventurers in search of instant wealth. It all started at Sutter’s Mill by James Marshall on January 24, 1848. But it is said that it was not the first discovery of gold in California. The first actual documented discovery of gold in California was said to happen 6 years earlier in the hill about thirty miles northwest of Los Angeles. The discovery of gold sparked mass hysteria as thousands of immigrants from around the world over took what would soon be called the Gold Country of California.
Economics: Salida is the service, supply, and tourism center for the Upper Arkansas Valley. Being a gold mine town, The city developed quickly, and became the hub of a prosperous mining and agricultural region within a decade of its founding. Salida endured devastating fires in its business areas in 1886 and 1888, but rebounded to build a substantial commercial area consisting principally of two-story brick buildings. The burned buildings deprived many jobs - which drove the unemployment rate up to 15-30 percent in the late 1980’s - though the citizens of salida slowly recovered. Transportation: The Denver and Rio Grande
Most of them hoped to become wealthy by finding natural riches like gold. They picked a spot near a wide river and built a settlement. In honor of King James, they called it Jamestown. Unfortunately, the settlers built Jamestown on a marsh. A marsh is a low lying area of wet land that is sometimes unhealthful for people.
Because Chinese immigrants came to America in large numbers during the 1848 California Gold Rush and in the 1860s when the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor groups to build its portion of the transcontinental railroad. In the past, the immigration to America was not a major factor in the American life. But then, they realized that the immigrations can cause and changed the life of Americans and they started to pay attention about
The social economic impact brought many settlers to the northern part of California, and the discovery of “gold” brought on the American conquest in 1848. According to text; The Devil in Silicon Valley, Arthur Stephen Pitti discuses on page 32-33, how the discovery of gold in Northern California brought many settlers; as well as many immigrates, to this state right after the war. Before the California Gold Rush; “165,000 people lived in California and the vast majority of them (150,00 were Indians)”; and in 1848 a big demographic and economic change accord which was brought on by the gold rush. The discovery of gold by James Marshall, “would leak out, and the rush to California was on.” Stephen Pitti best describes it best, “As battle smoke cleared and the ink dried on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, many of the Americans who flooded into the state anticipated the sharp decline of Mexican Americans’ cultural and political influence. While more distant Southern California towns such as Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego certainly experienced tumult as a result of the mineral discoveries in the Northern California foothills and many more gold-seekers passed through the San Francisco Bay area, including San Jose, on the way to the Mother Lode.” The
In 1826, an American named Jedediah Smith started to sell furs form different routes. Over time, more American came to California for a shelter and land. By 1848, they learned it was full of real gold. (My State, 3) That was the starting of the Gold Rush, the time that changed California forever. Then the United States defeated Mexico that declared California and part of Mexico were now parts of the United States (My State, 4).