What Was the Gold Rush? Author: Visit Amazon's Joan Holub Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0448465779 | Format: EPUB
What Was the Gold Rush? Description
About the Author
Joan Holub is the author of other Who Was…? titles, including Who Was Marco Polo? and Who Was Babe Ruth?
- Age Range: 8 - 12 years
- Grade Level: 3 - 7
- Series: What Was...?
- Hardcover: 128 pages
- Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap (February 7, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0448465779
- ISBN-13: 978-0448465777
- Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
When everyone thinks about a gold rush, inevitably they think about the California Gold Rush of 1849. It actually wasn’t the first gold rush in the United States. In 1799 a twelve-year-old boy discovered a nugget in a creek. Not thinking much about the seventeen-pound rock he dredged up, the family “used it as a doorstop.” Naturally once it was found to be gold, word got around and the rush was on. James Marshall “was building a sawmill for John Sutter” early in 1848 when he saw something very unusual in the waters below. He saw what appeared to be gold in the water, but was it “fool’s gold” or the real thing?
Testing proved that it was indeed the real thing, but the only problem was that John Sutter didn’t own the land. A bit greedy, “he needed to gain control of it, and fast.” The Nisenan Native Americans were more than happy to accept his trinkets and sign a treaty, but “only the US government had the power to make treaties.” Try as he might, his little secret soon became known. Everyone from his farmhands to the masses in San Francisco learned about it. The simple headline, “Gold Mind Found,” let loose a torrent that resulted in the famous California Gold Rush of 1849.
Men like Sam Brannan believed they “could get rich selling tools and supplies” to the prospectors. Thousands of gold-hunters began to arrive by ship and over land. President James K. Polk’s belief in Manifest Destiny spurred even more to move west. Traveling was fraught with unforeseen danger and disease. Not all was what it seemed. Unscrupulous business men were there to grubstake prospectors when they made their claims. Prices for everything were high and “dishonest merchants sold them fake gold-mining gadgets.
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