The discovery of gold in California in 1848 drew 300,000 people to California. They came from throughout the United States and the world in hopes of making their fortunes. The huge influx of people transformed San Francisco into a boom town and coincided with the US acquisition of California from Mexico – the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed just two weeks after the discovery of gold. California became a state the following year, and the wealth of the state from the Gold Rush as well as its reputation as a place for new beginnings shifted many Americans’ focus to the West, eventually resulting in the transcontinental railroad and the development of cities in the Sun Belt. After the gold that could be won through panning and simple collection (12 million ounces in the first five years of the Gold Rush), was exhausted, individual miners were replaced by companies who used new and destructive technologies. Hydraulic mining, dredging, and hard-rock mining led to contamination of rivers and destruction of mountain sides.
Contributed by Katherine Fadelli
Course: Modern Global Environmental History
Instructor: Dr. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
University of Wisconsin–Madison, US
- Rawls, James J., and Richard J. Orsi. A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development Gold Rush in California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999.
- Caughey, John Walton. The California Gold Rush. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948.