Ask someone of the first mineral they think of when they hear “California” and most people will say, without hesitation, GOLD!  When people think of California’s history, they think of the great gold rush of 1849.

  In January of 1848, James Marshall discovered gold on the American River at Sutter’s Sawmill.  Word spread of this discovery very quickly.  Soon after Marshall’s discovery, General John Bidwell discovered gold in the Feather River; a Major Pearson B. Reading then found gold in the Trinity River. 

  By 1849, thousands of people from all over the world rushed to California hoping to discover their own gold and become extremely rich.  Some of these “Miner 49ers” were very successful.  Most were not. 

   

 It did not take too long for miners and explorers to find gold all over the state.  Also in 1849, miners discovered large amounts of gold trapped in milky quartz veins in Mariposa County (at what would become known as the Mariposa mine).  One year later, in 1850, California officially became a state.  This was the year that gold was discovered at Gold Hill in Grass Valley.  The Grass Valley mining region is famous for the large underground gold mines that were created there.  The Grass Valley region was mined for gold for over 100 years.  The gold discoveries continued.  In 1851 gold was found in Greenhorn Creek in Kern County.  People began to rush to the Kern River area to find their fortunes in gold.

  In 1859 a 54-pound nugget of gold, called the Willard Nugget, was discovered at Magalia in Butte County.  This is the largest true nugget of gold ever discovered in California.  The largest piece of massive gold to be mined in California is believed to be the 195 pound mass collected in 1854 at Carson Hill.  There were many other very large nuggets and masses found in California.  A 52 pound mass of gold and quartz was recovered from the Diltz mine in Mariposa County.

  California’s famous Gold Rush ended in 1864.  By then most of the gold that was easily found on the surface had been found.  The river deposits (called placer deposits) were all mined out.  

  The California Gold Rush produced 125 million troy ounces of gold.  That gold would be worth well over $50 billion dollars in today’s money!

Above left:  Triangle-shaped gold crystals from the Mockingbird mine, Mariposa County.  The “triangles” are portions of octahedral (8-sided) crystals.  This cluster of gold crystals is from Placer County, California.  Like most gold crystals, their edges are smooth and rounded.  They are 8-sided octahedra (diamond-shaped) and cubes.  Its actual size is 1.75 inches high.