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21 unusual facts about California Gold Rush


Abigail Bush

In 1849 or 1850, Henry Bush, stung by years of business losses, headed west to seek his fortune in the California Gold Rush, and by the early 1850s, Abigail Bush joined him with their children.

Anton Refregier

The mural also depicted: the “California Gold Rush; the 1860s building by Union Pacific of the western First Transcontinental Railroad; the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire; and further into the twentieth century with the city's Second World War contributions, and culminating in the 1945 signing of the United Nations Charter in the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House.

California, Birmingham

There are tales that the name of the California Inn was taken from the state of California where Flavell had earlier made "something of a fortune" in the California Gold Rush.

Charles A. Storke

After teaching for two years in Brooklyn, Storke moved to Santa Barbara, California, as a teacher on the bequest of T. Wallace More, a cattleman who had made his fortune during the California Gold Rush selling food to gold miners.

Charlotte Blake Brown

Her father went to San Francisco at the height of the California Gold Rush in 1849, and the family joined him in 1851.

Colony of Vancouver Island

The result was that emigration was slow, and the landless labourers frequently fled the colony either to obtain free land grants in the United States, or work the newly discovered goldfields of California.

Der Kaiser von Kalifornien

The film follows the life story of Johann Augustus Suter, the owner of Sutter's Mill, famous as the birthplace of the great California Gold Rush of 1848.

Dominicans in the United States

On his way to his new post in California Alemany stopped in Paris and asked Dominican sisters to join him to teach the children of the Forty-niners.

Double Eagle

The first Double Eagle was minted in 1849, coinciding with the California Gold Rush.

Frank Turk

While in New York he belonged to the New York Knickerbockers, the original modern baseball club, and with fellow Knickerbocker Alexander Cartwright traveled to San Francisco in 1849 as part of the California Gold Rush; he is credited with Cartwright for bringing the game of baseball to San Francisco.

Guillermo Castro

To add to his financial problems he had to pay for lawsuits to force squatters off his land, brought by the influx of settlers from the California Gold Rush.

J. S. Holliday

Holliday wrote a masterly history of the California Gold Rush that capped three decades of painstaking research on the era.

Jack Vance

Vance's grandfather supposedly arrived in California from Michigan a decade before the Gold Rush and married a San Francisco girl.

Jacob C. Bogart

After a steady stream of people started to travel to San Francisco from Panama during the California Gold Rush, a coaling station was set up in San Diego.

James Farnell

The gold discoveries in California in 1848 led to his visiting America, and he also travelled in New Zealand before finally returning to New South Wales.

New Melones Lake

Exhibits focus on the use of the Stanislaus River by prehistoric and historic peoples, including Miwok Indians, the California Gold Rush, ranchers, and the now defunct community of Robinson Ferry, renamed Melones in 1902.

The Stanislaus River and environs experienced dramatic changes beginning with the Gold Rush.

Ormesby St Margaret with Scratby

California owes its name to the discovery of some 16th-century gold coins on the beach in 1848, at a time when the California gold rush had captured the attention of the world.

Rye Patch State Recreation Area

In the mid-19th century, particularly during the California Gold Rush, travelers along the Humboldt would graze their cattle on the wild ryegrass in the area near present-day Rye Patch Reservoir, which was known as Lassen Meadows.

Southwestern Vermont Medical Center

Henry W. Putnam, Sr., was wealthy businessman who started out selling bottled water during the California Gold Rush.

Weston, Missouri

William Buffalo Bill Cody was at one time a resident of Weston, and the town was a major "jumping off" point for the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail and the California Gold Rush.


Almaden Quicksilver County Park

The park is named after the New Almaden Quicksilver Mines, which were named after the mercury mine in (old) Almadén, Spain, and produced mercury that was used to process ore during the Gold Rush.

Alpha Hydraulic Diggings

The Alpha Hydraulic Diggings are located one mile north of what was the town of Alpha during the California Gold Rush in 1850, but the site is now near the unincorporated town of Washington, California.

Benicia State Recreation Area

Stonecutter Patrick Dillon came to California from Tipperary, Ireland, during the 1849 California Gold Rush, settling in Benicia in 1851.

Buck Choquette

Choquette left home on foot in 1849 at the age of 19 and set out first for work in Montreal, then travelled via Duluth, Minnesota to Independence, Missouri, where he joined one of the many wagon trains bound for the California Gold Rush.

Casa Blanca, Arizona

Casa Blanca was one of the Pima Villages on the Gila River in what was then part of the state of Sonora, Mexico, encountered by the American expeditions of Stephen W. Kearny and Philip St. George Cooke in 1846 and later by Americans on their way to California on the Southern Immigrant Trail during the California Gold Rush.

Compromise of 1850

During the deadlock of four years, the Second Party System broke up, Mormon pioneers settled Utah, the California Gold Rush settled northern California, and New Mexico under a federal military government turned back Texas's attempt to assert control over territory Texas claimed as far west as the Rio Grande.

Corral Hollow Creek

Named Arroyo de los Buenos Ayres or Aires by the Spanish, the creek retained this name despite the arrival of the Americans and the 49ers for some time.

Frank M. Pixley

Two years later he travelled to California during the Gold Rush, and spent two winters working mines on the Yuba River.

Garza Creek

This creek was the place first settled by Dave Kettelman, a 49er that went back to the Missouri River, and returned with a herd of cattle, which he pastured on his ranch in the Kettleman Plain and the Kettleman Hills west of Tulare Lake.

Hazardville, Connecticut

Production increased over the years in response to the needs of the U.S. military for gunpowder during the Mexican War (1846–1848), demand for blasting powder during the California Gold Rush of 1849, and the Crimean War (1850s), when the Hazard Powder Company supplied both Britain and Russia with gunpowder, shipping a total of 500 tons to Britain.

Hermann AVA

Stone Hill's cellars were constructed in 1847, the Hermanhoff Winery was founded in 1852 and in 1855, the Adam Puchta Winery was founded by immigrants from Oberkotzau, Bavaria who had struck gold during the California Gold Rush before returning to Hermann.

Idrija

The ghost town of New Idria, California, a site of mercury mining during the 19th-century California Gold Rush, was named after Idrija.

Isaac Green Messec

In 1849, Messec joined in the California Gold Rush, leaving East Texas for California with a party of fifty men, he crossed the entire state of Texas, turned south at El Paso into Chihuahua, Mexico to avoid the Apache, crossed into Sonora by way of the Guadalupe Pass, followed the trail through the future Gadsden Purchase territory to the Gila River, and rode down the Gila to the Colorado River.

James F. Curtis

James Freeman Curtis II (1825–1914), 49er, Vigilante leader in San Francisco, its first Chief of Police, officer in the California militia and Volunteers in the American Civil War.

Jeremiah Davis

He participated in the California Gold Rush and became wealthy after discovering gold vein near Georgetown, California.

Matthew Arbuckle

In 1849, his troops began to provide security for Americans active in the California Gold Rush on the southwestern route to California, which he established south of the Canadian River.

Museum of the City of San Francisco

The Virtual Museum website features major online exhibits on the California Gold Rush, the 1906 earthquake and fire, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Samuel C. Upham

In January 1849, Upham sailed on The Osceola to San Francisco, via Rio de Janeiro and Talcahuana, arriving in California on August 5, 1849 and participating in the California Gold Rush.

Samuel Penfield Taylor

Samuel Penfield Taylor (October 9, 1827, Saugerties, New York—January 22, 1886, San Francisco, California) was an entrepreneur who made his fortune during the California Gold Rush.

Tahoe National Forest

The forest also serves as the water supply headwaters for the towns of Lincoln, Auburn, Rocklin, California, and Reno and Sparks, Nevada, which receive the water through elaborate canal systems that largely originated during the California Gold Rush and Comstock Lode eras.

Thomas F. Ricks House

Thomas F. Ricks (1855–1908) was born in Eureka, California, the son of 49-er Caspar S. Ricks (November 10, 1821 Rome, Indiana - June 21, 1888 San Francisco) who built many business and residential blocks in Eureka and Adaline A. Fouts of Clark County, Indiana who also owned Eureka property independent from that of her husband.

Timothy Blair Pardee

After his studies, he began articling in the law office of William Buell Richards, but, in 1849, he joined the California Gold Rush.