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Events/Discovery · 1848

James Marshall finds gold at Sutter's sawmill

Discovery, 1848-01-24, United States.

What happened

Marshall found a gold nugget in the tailrace of a sawmill he was building for John Sutter on the South Fork of the American River. Word leaked out and reached San Francisco in March 1848.1,2,3

Why it matters

It started the California gold rush, the first of the great mid-century rushes.1,2,3

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Paddy Hannan born

    Paddy Hannan born (date from Wikidata).4

  2. Bathurst and Ophir gold rush

    It was the first publicised Australian gold rush and prompted the Victorian discoveries.5,6

  3. Alfred Beit born

    Alfred Beit born (date from Wikidata).7

  4. Eureka Rebellion

    Eureka Rebellion.8

  5. Welcome Nugget found at Ballarat

    It shows how rich the Victorian deep leads were.5,9

  6. Otago gold rush

    It financed the early growth of Dunedin and the colony.10,11

  7. General Mining Law of 1872

    The law remains the basis for claims to locatable minerals on US federal land.12,13

  8. Black Hills gold rush

    The expedition went ahead although the 1868 treaty had made the Black Hills part of a Sioux reservation. Homestake became a long-lived mine that closed in 2001.14,15

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Where next

People

Discovered byJames MarshallHe spotted the nugget on 18 January 1848 at Coloma.16Investigated byJohn SutterThe gold rush on his land cost him everything.17

Mines

Located inSutter's Mill (Coloma)See the mine at the heart of this story: Sutter's Mill (Coloma).1

Events

Led toBathurst and Ophir gold rushEdward Hargraves came home from the Californian fields and found gold near Bathurst.5

Places

Located inColomaSee the place where this happened: Coloma.1

Sources

  1. The California Gold Rush (California National Historic Trail) US National Park Service
  2. History and the Census: The 1848 California Gold Rush (Jan 2018) US Census Bureau
  3. Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park (item Q6773595), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  4. Wikidata item Q2057649 (Paddy Hannan)
  5. Australian Mineral Facts: Gold Geoscience Australia
  6. Ophir (item Q7097979), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  7. Wikidata item Q77802 (Alfred Beit)
  8. Wikidata item Q2164870 (Eureka Rebellion)
  9. Ballarat (item Q17856), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  10. History of Gabriels Gully NZ Department of Conservation
  11. Gabriel's Gully (item Q5515501), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. Mining Claims and Sites on Federal Lands (PDF) US Bureau of Land Management
  13. Washington, D.C. (item Q61), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  14. Mining in South Dakota: Education Kit (PDF) South Dakota State Historical Society
  15. Black Hills gold rush (item Q3453700), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  16. Marshall, James Wilson Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1900 (public-domain text on Wikisource)
  17. Sutter, John Augustus Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1889 (public-domain text on Wikisource)

Pictures on this page: John A. Sutter Oval Crop Edit Desat.png, Unknown author (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Underground mining equipment by Kaupo Kikkas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).