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North Carolina native John Reed discovered gold in his home state. This sparked the first gold rush in North America.
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In July, 1845, he arrived in the Sacramento Valley and began to work for John Sutter as a carpenter. Fairing well there, he improved his economic prospects, purchasing a ranch and began to raise cattle.
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In 1846, he joined John C. Fremont's California Battalion, and participated in the Bear Flag Revolt, a bid to seize control of California from Mexican control.
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When he returned to his land, he found his cattle had been stolen and was forced to sell his land. He then formed a partnership with John Sutter to build a sawmill.
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In January 1848, James Wilson Marshall struck gold when he was building a saw mill along the American River northeast of Sacramento. This story was published in a local newspaper, but people couldn't believe it, so they didn't. Finally, the gold rush started in May 1848 when a storekeeper had a bottle filled with gold dust around the San Francisco area.
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California was admitted as a state after the massive migration caused by the gold rush.
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Gold became a lot more scarce. As a result, better mining techniques and machines were invented
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The discovery of silver in Nevada ended the California Gold Rush
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Major gold has been found in many places in Alaska like Juneau, Nome and Fairbanks. Gold was first discovered in Southeast Alaska in the 1870s. The first discovery was made near Sitka in 1872, but the discovery of gold at Anvil Creek in 1898 brought thousands of fortune seekers, starting the last major American Gold Rush in the 19th century
