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James Marshall works on a water pump in Coloma, California and finds a shiny metal, which turned out to be gold.
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When reports of gold in California are published in local newspapers, no one immediately believed it.
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A merchant named Samuel Brannan confirms the news of gold and goes around San Francisco yelling to everyone there is gold and sells picks, pans, shovels and other mining equipment.
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An estimated $500,000 worth of gold is shipped out from San Francisco.
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About 90,000 migrants come to find riches through gold mines. A majority of the migrants were white but other ethnicities include, Australians, Chinese, Europeans, Mexicans and South Americans. Many women also come to find husbands.
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The Gold Rush becomes a very successful event for the miners. An estimated $10 million is found and San Francisco becomes the central city for all of these miners, creating many businesses and opportunities for others.
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Many of the white miners felt that Chinese and other raced miners were finding gold only whites deserved, therefore the state of California passed the Foreign Miner's Tax. This tax requied a payment from miners of different races to pay a fee of $3 a month when the average salary was $6 a month.
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San Francisco suffered a fire in late 1850 in which many buildings and businesses were destroyed. The residents of the area raised money for a fire department which solidified San Francisco as a legit city.
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In 1852 many immigrants come, nearly 20,000 Chinese alone, and replace the white miners who thought there was no gold left. That year there was a peak $81 million in gold found.
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In 1857 gold mining finally drops off and becomes more stabilized. This causes many to stop mining gold but still they stayed ion the West Coast.
