GOING WEST

One man’s chance discovery would put California firmly on the map and change the course of US history

- SPENCER MIZEN

They say that all that glitters isn’t gold. But the tiny pieces of metal that a carpenter named James Marshall spotted glistening in the sun on 24 January 1848 certainly were gold and their discovery would change the course of American history.

Marshall wasn’t searching for precious metal on that winter’s day. He was working on a new sawmill in the small Californian town of Coloma. Yet he instantly knew what he had found. It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold,” he later reported. It’s little wonder that Marshall’s heart skipped a beat, for the flakes that he spotted in a streambed adjacent to the American River would spark one of the most extraordinary events of the mid-19th century. It was an episode that would make some people fantastically rich, inflict misery on others, and transform life on America’s western seaboard for good. We are, of course, talking about the California gold rush.

In the 21st century, news of Marshall’s find would race round the world faster than a prospector could say gold fever”. Back in 1848, however, it was a far slower process. In nearby San Francisco then a small port-town whispers that there were large quantities of gold lying on the banks of the American River were initially greeted with scepticism.

Yet, slowly but surely, excitement grew stoked by men like Samuel Brannan, a local storekeeper with a sharp eye for a business opportunity, who paraded through San Francisco holding aloft a vial of gold obtained from Sutter Creek. By the summer, three-quarters of the town's male population had abandoned their shops and businesses for the gold mines popping up along the American River.

PAVED WITH GOLD