By Eduardo Porter
Publication Date: 2025-12-01 11:00:00
The California Gold Rush left a major mark on America. From 1848 to 1955, around 300,000 people flocked there from distant countries such as the Ottoman Empire. Gold prospectors massacred indigenous peoples to steal the gold from their land in the Sierra Nevada mountains. And they stimulated the economies of neighboring states and distant countries from which they bought their supplies.
Gold motivated California – a former Mexican territory then controlled by the US military – to become a state with its own laws. And yet only a few “49ers,” as gold prospectors were called, became rich. It was the traders who sold food and shovels to the gold miners who made the money. One of them, a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss, who sold denim overalls to the gold bugs roaming San Francisco, is perhaps the best-known figure of his time.
California is experiencing another surge in investment these days. This time the focus is on Silicon Valley. The gold treasure is more elusive, but potentially much…
