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The California Gold Rush Play In The Development Of American Transportation System

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The investigation’s research question is “To what extent did the California Gold Rush have a significant role in the development of American transportation systems?” This essay focuses in particular on the growth and improvement of the transportation networks of the three main ways to California: the Cape Horn Route, the Panama Route, and the overland route. These three methods to ship goods and people were significantly impacted by the California Gold Rush and its consequent effects. This is an important topic to investigate because it is vital to understand how transportation networks develop as new methods of transportation arise in the modern world such as high speed rail and, in the future, possibly even space travel. It is necessary to …show more content…

However, by 1850 the population had reached 92,597 people and by 1860 it had reached 379,994 people. This explosive change in population is one of the most obvious and direct effects of the Gold Rush. This huge migration, and the demand it created for better travel, is one of the biggest factors that transformed the methods of transcontinental transportation from dangerous and expensive to comparatively fast, safe, and much more comfortable. The wealth that the Gold Rush created is another important factor; California gold was used to finance many transportation projects such as the transcontinental railroad and it also created an economic incentive to establish more travel routes. Interregional trade developed between California and places such as China and Hawaii; these lines of trade were positively impacted by advances in transportation to …show more content…

John Sutter, a California landowner, had sent John Marshall to build a sawmill on the American River. Marshall discovered traces of gold in the tailrace in late January. When Marshall reported his find to Sutter, the landowner tried his best to keep the news from spreading by ordering his workers to stay quiet. For a time the news was kept quiet, mostly due to the remote nature of California; however, in March 1848 the first reports of gold began to surface in San Francisco newspapers and the news finally reached the East Coast by September of that year. The great migration had started; hundreds of thousands of gold-seekers were to eventually make their way to the Golden State. The Gold Rush ended in 1855, but California continued to grow even after the gold fields were

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At the time no one believed there was gold in California. On the 28th later that week Marshall rode into to town and had the metal tested at it turned out to be gold. Starting from that moment the word that gold had been discovered in this new frontier known as California started a world-wide craze. People traveled from the farthest of places to seeking fame and fortune in the new world. From 1848 to 1856 around $456 million dollars in gold had been discovered in California.

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On approximately January 24th 1848 James Marshall found a few small pieces of 23 Karat gold at Sutter's mill, officially starting the California gold rush. Not long after, an estimated three hundred thousand people migrated to California

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