Day 139 - Saturday - How the Gold Rush Began

John Marshall State Park occupies most of the town of Coloma, a short drive from the RV park.  This is the site of Sutter's Mill where Marshall discovered gold by accident in January 1848, while checking out the tailrace of the almost completed sawmill.  The mill itself was abandoned soon after and eventually disappeared but the State has built a replica, along with explanations of how it works, which we'll visit at the end of our day.

Marshall's discovery, which he and John Sutter weren't able to keep a secret, resulted in Coloma becoming a tent city and then a more substantial settlement as thousands of miners, most with no experience, descended on it, intent on making fortune.  We walk through the town, visiting a store built by a Chinese immigrant to service the needs of his countrymen; an indoor replica of a gold mine with descriptions - and models - of the processes used to extract gold from quartz; and examples of stampers and other gold mining equipment.

But it's the Visitor Center where we'll spend most of the day.  We're fascinated by a series of short talks by immigrants describing how they got to Coloma - round Cape Horn in winter by ship (159 days);  down the east coast from NYC, through the Caribbean and across Panama (no canal in those days and 22 miles of very difficult, if beautiful terrain) or Mexico; across the Pacific from Hong Kong ($40 passage paid for you but you had to work to pay it back); by ship from Chile where news of he discovery quickly arrived; or overland across the plains, the Rockies, the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada.  We see the only known remaining Conestoga Wagon as well as an example of a smaller wagon that made a fortune for its inventor, a freed slave who became a successful builder.

There is a selection of "on demand" movies available and over several hours we "demand" them all.  We learn more of John Marshall, who never made much from his discovery.  He later planted an orchard and was eventually given a small pension by the State, but he spent most of his life in poverty.  We learn of the development of different mining techniques, including one that destroyed a lot of the valley by blasting mountains with high pressure water jets.  This was eventually stopped by a court order that didn't make it illegal, but made the mine owners responsible for paying for the damage they caused.

We learn of Black Bart, who robbed stagecoaches but never their passengers, and never hurt anyone.  We learn how he was eventually caught when he dropped a handkerchief at one of his robbery scenes.  The marshals were able to trace him through the laundry code stamped on it!  We learn of Charley Parkhurst, one of the most celebrated stagecoach drivers of the 19th Century.  It wasn't until after Charley's death that it was discovered that Charley was, in fact, a woman!

We learn of the Mormon Battalion, a squad of 500 LDS church members who left their families and went to fight for the same US government that had refused to help them when they suffered persecution for their faith.  After being discharged in San Diego, many of them made it to Northern California and 6 of them were with John Marshall in the building of Sutter's Mill, at the time he discovered gold.  They, and most of their fellow Mormon Battalion members, headed east to Utah to join Brigham Young at the same time as everyone else was heading to California to try to strike it rich.

After viewing all the movies, we meet Ed, the Park Historian, who researched and narrated the stagecoach movie.  He answers more questions for us, such as what happened to the Swiss immigrant John Sutter, whose dream of building a business empire was, ironically, shattered when gold was discovered in his mill.  (He retired to a German speaking area of Pennsylvania with his German wife, who spoke no English).  Ed also gave us more background on the Mormons.

A fascinating day, learning about much more than the Gold Rush!  We're ready for lunch so check out the only restaurant we can find but it's closed (hosting a wedding!) so we drive back to the RV for a sandwich and quality time with the cats.  There's a restaurant in Coloma that is only open for dinner on the 3rd Saturday of the month, and serves wood fired pizza.  Today being the 3rd Saturday we later return to Coloma, only to find it's closed!  Not to worry.  Right across the road from the RV resort we find a restaurant where we can have pizza outside looking over the river.  So that's how we end our day.