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One day in 1848 a carpenter named Marshall, who worked in a saw mill in California, made a remarkable discovery. He noticed some bright yellow particles in the water and he took them to his partner, a Mr Sutter. Sutter was a Swiss who had come to America some years earlier to make a fortune for himself. He had been given permission to found a settlement in the Sacramento Valley and his determination and energy had made him rich.
Sutter and Marshall agreed to keep their find secret, but it was too late. It was not long before the news reached San Francisco. Gold fever hit the town like some terrible disease. Soldiers deserted the army, sailors left their ships, workman gave up their jobs – all to rush to the Sacramento Valley. The 1849. Gold Rush had begun.
The following autumn, people started arriving from the eastern states. The way overland was long, a difficult, over unfriendly country, high mountains, and dry deserts. There were some who were prepared to cross the terrible desert of Dead Valley in order to reach the gold a few days before the rest.
Some were lucky and found gold. They did not always live long enough to sell it – they were in the Wild West.
Many of the Forty – Niners – the men of the 1849 Gold Rush – found so little than they were never able to go back to the east. It was a hard life, and it produced hard men.
The Gold Rush was a disaster for Sutter himself. The prospectors did the great deal of damage on his land, and killed one of his sons and at the end of his life he was a poor man who stopped people in the street to tell them that Gold is the Devil.