Overview
The Old Reliable Shuttler Wagon, ca. 1800s; handcolored lithograph; courtesy The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley
News of Gold in California
Gold was discovered in California in 1848. The first find was at Sutter’s Mill on the American River, northeast of present-day Sacramento. The news quickly spread, and thousands of men — and a few women — traveled from all parts of the globe to seek their fortune.
San Francisco residents were the first to hear of gold in the Sierra foothills. Many of them abandoned the then-tiny city to become prospectors. Soon, residents of Oregon Territory heard the news and came down the Siskiyou Trail to California. Around the same time, prospectors from the northern Mexican state of Sonora found out about the discovery and headed north, becoming some of the first miners along California’s rivers and streams. The news quickly traveled to the Pacific Basin port towns that were linked to San Francisco by sailing routes. As a result, early prospectors included Hawaiians, Peruvians, Mexicans, and Chileans.