The Gold Rush

THE GOLD RUSH

Ads created to get settlers to go out west. The gold rush was a big attention getter for the companies trying to get people to book passage on their ships. Advertisements like these helped the population of the west grow from 26,000 people in 1848 to 380,000 people by 1860 and the west continues to grow today.

The above picture is a Sierra County miner panning for gold.

Approximately 16,000 settlers came to the Sierra Valley between

1848 and 1860. Due to the settlement of the miners, communities

grew and people began to raise cattle which provided meat and

diary products. Hay was also produced for the ranchers. By the

1880’s, Sierra Valley, California was a well known agricultural

region as well as a gold mining town.

Water Development by the Forty-Niners

Miners needed water to help get the gold out.

So they dug flumes and ditches to change the water flow

of the streams and rivers to get the gold out. When the gold

became difficult to find, the miners became farmers and

used the irrigation ditches to water their crops.

Information about the Gold Rush

1. California gold rush lasted from

1849 to approximately 1869.

The gold fields were named “The

Mother Lode”. These fields produced

approximately 250,000,000 dollars

worth of gold.

2. The discovery of the gold in California

was given to James Marshall who found

The gold at Sutter’s Mill on the American

River in 1848. However, historians now

believe that the first person to find gold

was Elizabeth Jane Wimmer, but no one

believed her. In 1842, Francisco Lopez

discovered gold and started a mini-gold

rush in the Placenta Canyon of the San

Gabriel Mountains in Southern California.

3. There was several ways to get to California.

You could go by sea routes or overland.

The Oregon Trail was a well used route.

4. A miner could claim a piece of land by

staking, registering and then owning it....