With gold prices achieving stratospheric levels, and the fame of the Discovery Channel's Gold Rush Alaska, maybe you're considering a bit of gold hunting yourself. Well, what better way to enjoy America's gold fever than by visiting the location of her first Gold Rush?
The Gold Rush of 1849 was caused when James Wilson Marshal found gold in the tail race at a mill he was building with John Sutter on the South Fork of the American River in the mountains east of Sacramento, in January of 1848. At first Marshal and Sutter attempted to keep the gold find to themselves. This effort, of course, failed and the leaked news of the gold find prompted one of the most famous mass migrations in American History: the Rush of '49.
Today, this beautiful rolling oak studded terrain is home to small farms, old towns, and the most famous river no one has ever heard of: the Sorth Fork of the American River. This river produced millions of dollars in gold, and efforts to find the origin of the gold that washes into the river have failed to materialize, so even after over 150 years of panning, mining, and sluicing, color is still found in the South Fork of the American River.
A replica of Sutter's mill along with a great State Park are located on the banks of the river in the town of Coloma, CA. A little museum gives a history, and a walking tour introduces visitors to the story of the gold rush. You can read the sad stories of Marshal and Sutter, both of whom failed to capitalize on their discovery.
Walking along the grassy river, and gazing into her clear cold water, it is difficult to see the history here. There is no sign of the massive amount of gold that left here, no sign of the thousands of lives transfixed by the allure of instant riches. The tents and shacks and lean-tos that served the miners are lost to history, and only a few log cabins remain from that time.
The nearby town of Placerville has more charm and history than the scattered streets and falling cabins that remain of Colomas. The gold rush populated the entire eastern edge of the Sierras. And old mining towns, are scattered south from Colomas along California Highway 49, a beautiful drive through rolling oak and grasslands.
But, how about taking a piece of history home? At the state park, in the gift shop, they will sell you gold pans and little vials to hold your flakes, they will tell you that across the bridge from the park it's legal to pan, and they will tell you that if it floats it's not gold, and wish you luck.
And then after crossing the beautiful bridge, and walking down the bank to the river, you can roll up you jeans and step into the cold clear waters of the South Fork of the American River. You can dip your pan into the gravels and slowly wash away the lighter rocks, and eventually, given time and patience, you will have small specks of gold shimmering in your pan. You will feel a tiny thrill of the hunt, and maybe feel a bit of the fever that made people leave their lives three thousand miles away to trek across a violent land to find this same metal in these same gravels, in this same river.
Holding history in your hand, and in your heart is part of travel, it is part of why people get on planes and fly to places like Egypt. Sutter's Mill is a small chapter in the massive sweep of history, but what better way to evoke history than to wade into it with a pan?
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