Geo Gold Emmons: The Marshall Gold Discovery 1848

Hello from Highway 49 in the Mother Lode of California,

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of visiting the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Eldorado County, California. The gold discovery park is located on Highway 49 between Auburn and Placerville (originally named "Hangtown"). The park is located 26 miles southeast of Auburn and 11 miles northwest of Placerville. It is a scenic drive through the foothills of the Sierras.

Aerial view of the Marshall Gold Discovery Park (looking northerly).

The discovery of placer gold was made on January 24, 1848 by James W. Marshall at the lumber mill built by John A. Sutter. The lumber mill was built on the south side of the South Fork of the American River.

The first newspaper account of the discovery was on March 15, 1848 appearing in the The Californian of San Francisco. A copy of the brief article is shown in the following (New Helvetia was the original name for Sacramento):

An excellent prediction of the importance of the discovery.

Sutter and Marshall partnered to build a lumber mill on the South Fork of the American River near the Native American community of Cullumah. The name was later changed to Coloma. On January 24th, Marshall found gold attempted to keep the discovery secret, however it was not possible. The secret was revealed in San Francisco by Sam Brannan. He went about the streets showing off his quinine bottle filled with gold from the American River. Gold samples from the discovery were taken by an army officer to President James K. Polk . The nation's newspapers reported the discovery and the rush was on in 1849. The discovery was also carried worldwide.

Much of the above information is from the park brochure "Marshall Gold Discovery State Historical Park," 2015, California State Parks.

Their website is www.parks.ca.gov/marshallgold

The placer deposits of foothills of the Sierras has yielded 42 million ounces of gold. The placer deposits were formed by the erosion of orogenic (aka mesothermal) lode gold deposits (quartz veins and disseminated gold). The age of the lode gold mineralization is Cretaceous at 125 Ma +/- 10 Ma (Goldfarb, et.al., 2008, Orogenic gold and evolution of the Cordilleran orogeny, in Arizona Geological Society Digest 22, p. 311-323.). The placer deposits are two types: paleoplacers ("fossil" placers) and modern placers. The paleoplacers are in Tertiary sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Eocene to the early Oligocene. Mining of the placer deposits was by panning, sluicing, hydraulic mining, large gold dredges and by underground mining in the Tertiary channels.

These photos are from the recent trip to the park at the original Gold Rush discovery in California.