Second time is a charm. We attempted to visit Marshall Gold Discovery State Park yesterday only to discover that the museum was closed on Mondays; thankfully it’s literally a five-minute drive from the campground or Mike would have been mad. Today was a much better day, everything was open there, and we got to learn about the place where the California gold rush began.
We walked on the place where on January 24, 1848, James Marshall, while he was inspecting the waterway for John Sutter's new lumber mill, found gold flakes in a stream bed. It was this find that sparked one of the largest human migrations in history bringing more than 175,000 people to the area that is now Coloma, along the bank of the American River; many arriving in 1849 and were known as the ‘Forty-niners’.

Mike: I was just a little late for this period of history! I might have been rich!

The museum at the park is very well done and very informative, telling the story of Marshall and his partner in the lumber business, John Sutter, founder of Sacramento. The park, founded in 1942, has plaques telling the story of the town during the gold rush, and has many original buildings from the time period, including the jail, Marshall’s cabin, and buildings used by the Chinese immigrants that flocked to the area. And although the original sawmill was washed away during flooding in the 1850’s, a full size replica has been built.

 

 After spending a few hours wandering around and learning about the finding of gold we headed up the hill along to see The Marshall Monument which is a thirty one foot granite base with a 10’ 6” bronze statue of Marshall on top. It shows Marshall holding a gold nugget while pointing to the place where he first discovered gold. The monument was erected in 1890 and Marshall is buried beneath it.