#california-gold-rush

#california-gold-rush

The California Gold Rush left an outsized imprint on America. Some 300,000 people flocked there from 1848 to 1955, from as far away as the Ottoman Empire. Prospectors massacred Indigenous people to take the gold from their lands in the Sierra Nevada mountains. And they boosted the economies of nearby states and faraway countries from whence they bought their supplies. Gold provided the motivation for California a former Mexican territory then controlled by the US military to become a state with laws of its own.

Petaluma's farm-to-table trend started during the California Gold Rush, supplying essentials like eggs and meat to mining towns and San Francisco, showcasing its agricultural significance.