<P> The first gold found in California was made on March 9, 1842 . Francisco Lopez, a native California, was searching for stray horses . He stopped on the bank of a small creek in what later was known as Placerita Canyon, about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the present - day Newhall, California, and about 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Los Angeles . While the horses grazed, Lopez dug up some wild onions and found a small gold nugget in the roots among the onion bulbs . He looked further and found more gold . </P> <P> Lopez took the gold to authorities who confirmed its worth . Lopez and others began to search for other steambeds with gold deposits in the area . They found several in the northeastern section of the forest, within present - day Ventura County . In 1843 he found gold in San Feliciano Canyon near his first discovery . Mexican miners from Sonora worked the placer deposits until 1846, when the Californios began to agitate for independence from Mexico, and the Bear Flag Revolt caused many Mexicans to leave California . </P> <P> The first people to rush to the goldfields, beginning in the spring of 1848, were the residents of California themselves--primarily agriculturally oriented Americans and Europeans living in Northern California, along with Native Americans and some Californios (Spanish - speaking Californians). These first miners tended to be families in which everyone helped in the effort . Women and children of all ethnicities were often found panning next to the men . Some enterprising families set up boarding houses to accommodate the influx of men; in such cases, the women often brought in steady income while their husbands searched for gold . </P> <P> Word of the Gold Rush spread slowly at first . The earliest gold - seekers were people who lived near California or people who heard the news from ships on the fastest sailing routes from California . The first large group of Americans to arrive were several thousand Oregonians who came down the Siskiyou Trail . Next came people from the Sandwich Islands, and several thousand Latin Americans, including people from Mexico, from Peru and from as far away as Chile, both by ship and overland . By the end of 1848, some 6,000 Argonauts had come to California . </P>

Facts about the california gold rush of 1849