There are a lot of weird and interesting facts about the California Gold Rush.  Some people on the trail to California didn’t know that there wouldn’t be much water.  Some people that already knew this took barrels of water and sold them.  The problem was, they cost up to $100 a drink! But the travelers were so thirsty, they bought it anyway.  When coming to a creek or stream, the miners would drink all they could and then fill boots, hats and everything else with water.   Learn more interesting facts like this by reading this report.
  
Important dates/Discoveries

     There were many important dates in the California Gold Rush, but the most important would probably be January 24, 1848.  That was the day that James Marshall found gold at Sutters fort.
But that isn’t where the story started.

 In 1834, John Sutter owed a lot of people a lot of money.  He ran away leaving his wife and children.   He ran and ran to end up in Sacramento River Valley California.  Then, in 1840, he received 50,000 acres of land that was soon filled by overland immigrants.  In 1841, the trail taken by many became known as the California Trail.

Then came 1848, when James Marshall found gold.  Sutter’s fort became a lively place.  John hired Indians to work for him.  Sutter’s fort kept growing and John could not afford for his employees to stop.  Sutter’s sawmill turned into the city of San Francisco.  The next year, 1849, many men and women traveled to California in search of gold. 

Gold seekers decided to call themselves  “49ers” because most of the miners came to California in 1849.  By late 1849, “gold fever” had spread around the world and more than 50,000 people came to look for it.  A few years later in 1852, gold became scarce.   But people kept coming as the population exceeded 300,000 people.   The gold rush lasted about eleven years and ended with the find of silver in Nevada.

Gold

Gold is a metal prized for its beauty and rarity.  Gold does not rust or tarnish.  It is one of the easiest metals to shape and one of the fist metals discovered.



 Tools

Miners in the California Gold Rush used a lot of different tools.   But the most common would probably be a pick ax, a shovel, and a pan.  They didn’t use hydraulic mining until gold became harder to get. While traveling, some miners found a note.   It read:  “Expect to find the worst desert you ever saw, and then find it worse than you expected.”


 

Related Careers

There are a few related careers to the California Gold Rush.  One would of course be mining.
Another is a professor of some kind that would study the California Gold Rush.

There are a lot of weird facts about the California Gold Rush that a lot of people don’t know.
Some miners expected to strike it rich in a few days but found themselves digging for months and     even years.   The California Gold Rush is just about all history, but people still pan for gold today.  

John A. Sutter is the reason that the California Gold Rush began. If it weren’t for his sawmill, James Marshall wouldn’t have found gold and made this amazing, historical event happen.

Who I Interviewed And What I Learned   I interviewed Montgomery Walker on Wednesday, December 5, 2004 at his house.  He is a history professor at Yakima Valley Community College  (YVCC).  He said he needed a lot of schooling for his job.  He also said he had to read, read, read.  He became a history professor in 1997 and has been teaching for about 8 years.  Mr. Walker decided to be a professor because it is something he enjoys. He would rather do it than something he doesn’t like.  If he were living at the time of the gold rush he said he would probably go, but it would depend on what he was doing at the time. He thinks the gold rush influenced the settlement of the west because it made people think about settling where there was lots of gold.  When Mr. Walker told me about the history of the gold rush, I learned a lot.  He told me that California was interesting to people after the discovery of gold at Sutters fort, named after John Sutter.  As James Marshall was working on something at the sawmill, he saw something sparkling in the water.  It turned out to be gold.  As soon as people heard about it, California turned into a place where people wanted to be.  Some people got rich during the gold rush, but not many.  Usually the people who got rich weren’t miners at all but the people that sold them their supplies. Mostly men went to California, but the women that did go didn’t get rich by digging for gold.  The women made food and clothes to sell to miners.  They usually sold them for a lot of money. Mr. Walker told me that all the people in the gold rush were important.  But the most famous were John Sutter and James Marshall.  Mr. Walker told me some positive and negative consequences of the California Gold Rush.  First some positive things are that California became more popular, and a lot of gold came back to us that we can use to do things other countries can’t do.  Some of the negative things are that most of the landowners (who were Spanish) lost their land.  Also when miners looked for gold, they used mercury to separate real gold from the fake and washed it in the river. California still has problems today with mercury in the water.  I think I made a good choice by picking Mr. Walker because he answered my questions and helped me get all my information.  He was very kind to me and was very friendly.  I think I made a good choice by picking him.

Bibliography Events Of The California Gold Rush  <http://Kidport.com> Hansen, Gladys John A. Sutter California Gold Rush.com Isaacs, Sally. The Gold Rush Chicago:  1979 pp.1-16, 34 Lamb, Annette and Johnson, Larry The Gold Rush http://Google.com Mattes, Merrill Important dates/discoveries of the California gold rush http://Yahoo.com Steenwyk, Elizabeth. The California Gold Rush.  New York: 1991 pp. All Sun-Minnick, Sylvia Gold Country http://GOOGLE.com “The California Gold Rush.” The World Book Encyclopedia.   2004. The Gold rush <http://pbs.org/goldrush> Walker, Montgomery.  Personal Interview.    January 7, 2005

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