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The Discovery of Gold in California: Francisco

The miners then began to straggle down to San Francisco with their pouches of gold-dust, and to show them to the people there.

This was enough to start a panic rush for the gold fields. In three months most of the houses in San Francisco, and in Monterey, were shut up, and their occupants turned in mad haste for the hills. Sailors left their ships in the harbor, carpenters abandoned their benches, lawyers closed their offices, physicians deserted their patients, even the newspapers suspended indefinitely.

Everybody who could get a shovel and a pan, and a week's supply of provisions, was off for the mines. The people were as wild for gold-hunting as ever were the Spaniards of former days.

The result was that mills were left idle, fields of wheat were turned over to the horses and cattle, houses became vacant, and farms went to waste. People had no thought for food or anything else. Tents were built near the mines, and along the river-beds where the gold was found. There were fabulous stories of men who made fifty dollars a day. One miner, with a common tin pan, washed out gold to the value of eighty-two dollars in a single day. A man who made less than ten dollars a day was not considered a good miner.

Prices went bounding higher and higher. Flour was worth fifty dollars a barrel, a common spade sold for ten dollars, rooms were rented for a hundred dollars a month each, and a simple twostory house at Sutter's fort brought five hundred dollars a month as a hotel.

In the meanwhile, gold was found in other areas. Every day new stories were heard of some rich "find" somewhere, followed by a mad rush to the place. In a few months, four thousand people were washing for gold, as if it were the only business in life.

Vessels, returning from San Francisco, carried the wonderful news to all parts of the world.

Everywhere was blazoned the story that gold was found in the streams, on the mountain sides, and in the gullies of California. There was a mad race for the gold-fields! Adventures from the islands of the Pacific, from South America, even from China, began to pour in by every arriving ship.

The news reached the Atlantic ports, and society was stirred to its very depths. First there was wonder and distrust, but the stories kept on coming, until the East went wild with the fever for gold. How to get to California was the one great question!

It was three thousand miles across the plains, and a still longer journey by the Isthmus of Darien, or by water around Cape Horn. This did not deter or dismay the eager people. Ships were fitted out in every port, caravans were made ready for the overland journey, and thousands of goldhunters started for the land of wealth. In one year, a hundred thousand people moved into California, coming from all sections of the country, and from nearly all parts of the world.