Earlier discoveries
Gold was discovered in California as early as March 9, 1842, at Rancho San Francisco, in the mountains north of present-day Los Angeles. Californian native Francisco Lopez was searching for

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The first people to rush to the goldfields, beginning in the spring of 1848, were the residents of California themselves—primarily

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When the Gold Rush began, the California goldfields were peculiarly lawless places. When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, California was still technically part of Mexico, under American military occupation as the result of the Mexican–American War.

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Recent scholarship confirms that merchants made far more money than miners during the Gold Rush. The wealthiest man in California during the early years of the rush was

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The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new people in California within a few years, compared to a population of some 15,000 Europeans and

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• The literary history of the Gold Rush is reflected in the works of Mark Twain (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County),

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Four hundred million years ago, California lay at the bottom of a large sea; underwater volcanoes deposited lavaand minerals (including gold)

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