California Gold Rush 1848–1857: Timeline, Gold Mined and Its Value Today

The California Gold Rush began on 24 January 1848, when James W. Marshall found gold flakes in the tailrace of a sawmill he was building with John Sutter at Coloma, and it peaked in 1852, when California’s mines produced $81.3 million in gold. Bullion Trading LLC research using the annual series compiled by Charles G. Yale of the U.S. Geological Survey finds that the mines yielded $502.6 million from 1848 to 1857, about 24.3 million troy ounces of fine gold at the official price of $20.67 an ounce. At the gold Ask on 3 November 2026, that gold would be worth about $96.7 billion.

The site is now Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. For anyone holding gold today, the rush is also a long test of the metal against the dollar: An ounce the U.S. Mint valued at $20.67 in 1849 had a gold Ask of $3,977.97 on 3 November 2026, about 192 times as much, while consumer prices rose about 40-fold, so the rush’s gold now buys about five times as much as it did then.

Key finding	Result
Discovery	24 January 1848, James W. Marshall, Sutter’s sawmill at Coloma (South Fork of the American River)
Marshall’s reward	No fortune; a state pension from 1872 to 1878 ($200 a month, later halved)
Peak year	1852: $81.3 million, about 3.9 million oz
Gold mined, 1848 to 1857	24.3 million oz ($502.6 million then); $96.7 billion at today’s gold Ask
Statehood	9 September 1850, as a free state
Population	About 14,000 non-Native residents (1848); 379,994 (1860 census)
Native Californians	Perhaps 150,000 (1846) to about 30,000 (1873)
A worker’s day, July 1848	About $10 of gold: $1,924 at today’s gold Ask, $388 after inflation

When was the California Gold Rush?

It ran from the discovery in January 1848 to about 1855, when the easy surface gold was gone. By then mining was an industry of companies, quartz mills and hydraulic hoses that washed away hillsides until lawsuits by downstream farm towns curbed them in 1884 (California State Parks).

The gold turned up nine days before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on 2 February 1848, transferred California from Mexico to the United States.

Who discovered gold in California, and how was he rewarded?

James W. Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, spotted the flakes while inspecting the tailrace of the mill he was building as John Sutter’s partner (State Parks). His crew included Native workers and Mormon Battalion veterans; one, Henry Bigler, noted “some kind of mettle” in his diary that day.

The partners failed to keep it quiet. In May, Sam Brannan, who kept a store at Sutter’s Fort, paraded through San Francisco waving a bottle of gold, and by the end of the month the town was reported half empty.

Marshall gained little: miners overran Coloma and his prospecting failed. In 1872 the Legislature granted him $200 a month for two years, halved for four more, ending in 1878. He died at Kelsey on 10 August 1885; in 1890 the state raised a statue over his grave, California’s first State Historic Monument.

How much gold was mined in California from 1848 to 1857?

$502.6 million at the prices of the day: about 24.3 million troy ounces of fine gold, or 756 tonnes. Output rose from $245,301 in 1848 to a peak of $81.3 million in 1852, then eased as the rich surface deposits ran out.

Yale compiled the series in 1894 from the state geologist, federal mining commissioners, Wells Fargo and the San Francisco refinery (State Mining Bureau). At today’s price, 1852 alone would be worth $15.6 billion:

Why is it called the 1849 gold rush?

Because the stampede began in 1849, after President James K. Polk confirmed the discovery in his message of 5 December 1848, saying the accounts of gold “would scarcely command belief” without officers’ reports to back them.

The key report came from Col. Richard B. Mason, the military governor, who toured the diggings in July 1848. His report of 17 August reported more than 4,000 men at work, more than half of them Native Californians, taking $30,000 to $50,000 of gold a day with picks, shovels, tin pans and wooden rocking cradles.

The forty-niners came overland on the California Trail, by sea around Cape Horn, or by ship to Panama and across the isthmus (National Park Service). About 300,000 people arrived in the years after 1848, according to the California State Archives.

How did the gold rush change California’s population and statehood?

It multiplied the counted population about 27-fold in 12 years: from about 14,000 non-Native residents in 1848 to 92,597 in the 1850 census and 379,994 in 1860.

Delegates signed a state constitution on 13 October 1849, with a Spanish version for Spanish-speaking Californians (State Archives), and asked to join as a free state. Congress admitted California as the 31st state on 9 September 1850, in the Compromise of 1850, which also gave the country the Fugitive Slave Act. The ban mattered at Coloma: Peter and Nancy Gooch, brought there enslaved in 1849, gained their freedom with statehood, and Nancy later bought her son’s freedom.

Who paid the price of the gold rush?

Native Californians paid the most. The Nisenan and Miwok had lived along the American River for thousands of years, and miners seized their fishing and gathering places. In 1850 the Legislature passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which allowed removal from land and forced labor, and the state authorized about $1.29 million for militia campaigns in the 1850s, as Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged in a 2019 apology. Historian Benjamin Madley estimates the Native population fell from perhaps 150,000 in 1846 to 30,000 by 1873 and calls it genocide.

• Californios. The Land Act of 1851 made holders of Spanish and Mexican land grants prove their titles. The federal board heard 813 cases and confirmed 604, but cases took an average of 17 years, and most Californios lost their titles (Bancroft Library).
• Chinese miners. In China, California became Gum San, “Gold Mountain.” Foreign miners paid $20 a month from 1850 and a $3 monthly license from 1852, raised to $4 a year later, collected mainly from Chinese miners (Santa Clara University). By 1857 they were almost the only miners left at Coloma.

What did a forty-niner earn, and who got rich?

Early on, a lot. Mason’s July 1848 figures work out to $7.50 to $12.50 of gold per worker a day, and a four-man cradle team averaged $25 each, when Sutter paid skilled mechanics $10. But flour already cost $36 a barrel, and the average take fell as newcomers crowded the same streams.

Steadier fortunes went to sellers: Brannan had his store, and Levi Strauss came in 1853 to supply the West’s general stores. Economists Karen Clay and Randall Jones found that miners’ gains were generally small or zero, while non-miners’ were large (Journal of Economic History, 2008).

What was the price of gold in 1849, and how did it become money?

Officially $20.67 a troy ounce, the value of fine gold in U.S. coins until 1934, when it became $35 (St. Louis Fed). Raw dust, which was not pure, was worth less.

Before California had a mint, private assayers such as Moffat & Co. coined gold from 1849, and from January 1851 the U.S. Assay Office of Gold struck octagonal $50 “slugs” (Smithsonian); a slug’s 2.42 ounces of gold would fetch $9,622 today. Congress created the $20 double eagle on 3 March 1849, and the San Francisco Mint opened in April 1854, striking over $4 million in gold coins in its first year.

A double eagle holds 0.9675 troy ounce of fine gold, worth $3,849 at today’s gold Ask. Common dates trade at a modest premium to that metal value and rare ones far above, like the 1933 double eagle; San Francisco coins carry the S mint mark, and the melt-value guide shows the arithmetic.

How we did the research

Production is Yale’s series as reprinted by the California State Mining Bureau (statistics for 1924). We read its dollars as the coinage value of fine gold and divide by $20.67 for ounces; the underlying records are estimates. Today’s values use the store’s live spot, which is not a buy or sell price. Inflation uses the Minneapolis Fed’s estimates for 1848 to 1857, rebased and carried to September 2026 with FRED’s CPIAUCNS; camp prices ran far above that national index. Mason’s daily range is $30,000 to $50,000 divided by 4,000 workers. Early counts left most Native people out. Data: CSV download.

What the gold rush means today

In 12 years the rush turned a former Mexican province of about 14,000 settlers into a state of nearly 380,000 people, at a terrible cost to Native Californians, Californios and Chinese miners. At today’s gold Ask, the 24.3 million ounces mined from 1848 to 1857 would be worth about $96.7 billion, and a $20 double eagle’s gold about $3,849. Most miners did not keep their share; the gold kept its value.

Frequently asked questions

Where was gold discovered in 1849?

It was first found in January 1848, not 1849, at Coloma on the South Fork of the American River, about 45 miles east of Sutter’s Fort (now Sacramento). The rush of newcomers began in 1849.

What was the price of gold in 1849?

$20.67 per troy ounce of fine gold, its value in U.S. coins until 1934. The gold Ask was $3,977.97 an ounce on 3 November 2026, about 192 times the 1849 price.

When did the California Gold Rush end?

Most histories end it around 1855, when the surface gold was largely gone, though California still produced $43.6 million of gold in 1857.

Sources

• California State Parks, Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park (discovery, pension, population, Coloma’s people) and Malakoff Diggins.
• California State Mining Bureau, gold production table (Yale’s series).
• Col. Richard B. Mason, report on the gold mines, 17 August 1848; Miller Center, Polk’s 1848 message.
• National Archives, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Compromise of 1850.
• California State Archives, 1849 Constitution and Census of 1852.
• U.S. Census Bureau, the 1848 Gold Rush; California Department of Finance, census totals.
• Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide (Yale, 2016); Governor of California, 2019 apology.
• Bancroft Library, California land claims; Santa Clara University, anti-Chinese policies.
• U.S. Mint, San Francisco Mint and 1849 coinage act; Smithsonian, 1851 $50 slug.
• Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, CPI since 1800; St. Louis Fed, CPIAUCNS.
• Clay and Jones, Migrating to Riches? (2008); National Park Service, California Trail.