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James Marshall was at Sutter's Mill, located in Coloma, California. While in the river he found a shiny metal which turned out to be gold.
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Word of this amazing discovery quickly spread and many people began forming gold mines. By August, about 4000 gold mines were formed.
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In 1849, all around the world, travels come to California to find gold for wealth.
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With many travels coming from all around the world, people attempted to set up a government to rule the land in order to set up laws.
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San Francisco later became the central city for the gold mining towns. Since it became the central city, businesses were formed in order to accommodate the gold miners.
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California proposed of wanting to become an official state of the United States, that would be free of slavery. This struck a lot of controversy amongst the people and lead to fighting. Thus, the Compromise of 1850 was passed in order to help resolve the division over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American War.
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In 1850, much of the gold had been mined only leaving small amounts for anyone who wanted to find gold. This brought more travels, which lead to competition over who would find the last amounts of gold.
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In 1853, new ways of mining were introduced in order to make mining for gold easier. One way was hydraulic mining which uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.
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In 1857, the infamous gold rush finally fell off when the gold output stabilized at around $45 million dollars a year.
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Finally in 1884, a California judge outlawed hydraulic mining in order to preserve the lands and prevent them from getting damaged any further.
