History
On January 24, 1848, Marshall found several flakes of gold that began the transformation of California from a sleepy outpost to a bustling center of activity. Sutter and Marshall tried to keep the discovery secret, but eventually the word got out. During the next seven years, approximately 300,000 people came to California (half by land and half by sea) to seek their fortunes mining for gold or selling supplies like picks and shovels to the gold prospectors.
The first documentation of the Sutter's Mill discovery were by Henry Bigler and Azariah Smith, in their respective diaries. Like several other people working at the mill, these two workers were discharged veterans of the Mormon Battalion. After this discovery at the mill, the "gold rush" era began and many people came from the east to find fortune. The era helped to transform people like Levi Strauss and Luzena Wilson.
Read more about this topic: Sutter's Mill
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)