The Georgia gold rush started off with “There’s gold in them there hills!” The California version began a little more subdued, with a carpenter working on site of a planned sawmill discovering a few shiny specks on the ground. In his account of that fateful day, he recalls testing them for malleability, and upon seeing they could be shaped and not broken, taking them to a colleague nearby. “I have found it”, he said. “Gold. … It can be nothing else.”

On this day, January 24, 1848, James William Marshall’s discovery of gold at Sutter’s Creek touched off what would become the great gold rush of California. By May of that year, a local shopkeeper took to walking around San Francisco holding out a bottle with gold dust, proclaiming “Gold! Gold! Gold from American River!”

To understand the impact of the Gold Rush on California, one must remember that California was not even a state during those early years, and San Francisco was a tiny outpost of 200 people. As the number of gold-seekers grew, businesses and institutions from schools to shops sprung up to cater to them. By 1850 California was a state, and by 1870 San Francisco alone numbered 150,000 residents.