The American gold rush

On January 24, 1848, James W Marshall found gold at the Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, El Dorado in California. The news spread and some 300,000 people from South America, Europe, Australia and Asia traveled to the site. They found gold for billions of dollars. In two years, San Francisco was transformed from a small place with 1,000 people to a town with 25,000 inhabitants. The gold rush in the area lasted until about 1850, when the gold diggers moved further up the American west coast.