The California Gold Rush At Sutter's Mill

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In the cold morning hours of January 24, 1848, James Marshall, a construction foreman at Sutter’s Mill, was inspecting the water flow through the mill’s tail race. The sawmill, on the banks of the American River in Coloma, California, was owned by John A. Sutter, who desperately needed lumber for the building of a large flour mill. On that particular morning, Marshall not only found the water to be flowing adequately through the mill, but also spied a shiny object twinkling in the frigid stream. Stooping to pick it up, he looked with awe at a pea-sized gold nugget lying within his hand. He immediately went to visit Elizabeth Jane "Jennie" Wimmer, the camp cook and laundress, who had grown up in a prospecting family. Ms. Wimmer used a lye soap solution overnight to verify that the 1/3 ounce nugget Marshall had found was true gold. Dubbing it the Wimmer Nugget, which was later appraised at $5.12, Marshall

However Marshall discovered gold by accident, according to his own memories, the discovery of gold in the morning, when he was checking the sawmill waterways saw some shining points of light in the bed, then ran over to see, and found some yellow metal, he picked up one or two years, after repeated exploration, and on the rock hit, these glowing gold pieces can be changed shape, but very tenacity, not broken. Marshall based on their experience, judgment which is gold. When he went back to take a look at the workers, who are making waterwheel workers do not believe it is gold, Marshall later said:. "My heart is pounding because I knew it was