<P> Other businessmen reaped great rewards in retail, shipping, entertainment, lodging, or transportation . Boardinghouses, food preparation, sewing, and laundry were highly profitable businesses often run by women (married, single, or widowed) who realized men would pay well for a service done by a woman . Brothels also brought in large profits, especially when combined with saloons and gaming houses . </P> <P> By 1855, the economic climate had changed dramatically . Gold could be retrieved profitably from the goldfields only by medium to large groups of workers, either in partnerships or as employees . By the mid-1850s, it was the owners of these gold - mining companies who made the money . Also, the population and economy of California had become large and diverse enough that money could be made in a wide variety of conventional businesses . </P> <P> Once extracted, the gold itself took many paths . First, much of the gold was used locally to purchase food, supplies and lodging for the miners . It also went towards entertainment, which consisted of anything from a traveling theater to alcohol, gambling, and prostitutes . These transactions often took place using the recently recovered gold, carefully weighed out . These merchants and vendors in turn used the gold to purchase supplies from ship captains or packers bringing goods to California . </P> <P> The gold then left California aboard ships or mules to go to the makers of the goods from around the world . A second path was the Argonauts themselves who, having personally acquired a sufficient amount, sent the gold home, or returned home taking with them their hard - earned "diggings". For example, one estimate is that some US $80 million worth of California gold was sent to France by French prospectors and merchants . </P>

Where was the most gold found during the gold rush