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The great California gold rush began on January 24, 1848, when James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget in the American River while constructing a water pump.
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A mormon leader named Samuel Brannan opens a general store at Sutter's Fort, near modern day in Sacramento.
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James W. Marshall is a foreman building a lumber mill for pioneer landholder John Sutter discovers gold in the American River east of Sacramento.
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California becomes United States territory with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ends the Mexican American War by transferring nearly half of Mexico's lands to the United States.
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The Californian newspaper in San Francisco reports for the first time the gold discovery in the Sierra.
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San Francisco's California Star newspaper prints a six page special edition, for distribution in the eastern states, touting immensely rich gold mines in California.
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San Francisco merchant Samuel Brannan runs through the streets of the city, waving a quinine bottle full of gold while shouting Gold, gold, gold from the American River.
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In the first six weeks following the arrival of gold fever in San Francisco Samuel Brannan earns $36,000 the equivalent of $750,000 today in profits from his general store outfitting miners with picks pans and shovels.
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The first Chinese immigrants arrive in San Francisco.
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More than half the miners in the gold fields in the first months of the Gold Rush are Indians, often brutally exploited by whites.
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The New York Herald becomes the first major eastern newspaper to tout the discovery gold in California.
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The New York Herald becomes the first major eastern newspaper to tout the discovery gold in California.
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-A new star is added to the flag.
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The first gold ship, bearing $500,000 bound for the United States Mint sails from San Francisco.
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President James K. Polk confirms the discovery of gold in California in an address to Congress touching off a migration of hundreds of thousands of men hopeful of striking it rich in the goldfields.
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Robert Semple changed the name of the combined Star and Californian to the Alta California.
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Henry M. Naglee and Richard H. Sinton formed a bank called the Exchange and Deposit Office on Kearny St. facing Portsmouth Plaza. Sinton was acting paymaster aboard the Ohio and came to San Francisco with Commodore Jones
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President Polk appointed John White Geary as Postmaster, with the power to expand postal service through the new territory.The Alta California became the first daily newspaper in California.
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Public meeting at the Plaza formed the Legislative Assembly of the District of San Francisco with 15 elected members.
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Goat Island also known as Sea Bird Island and later as Wood Island, sold by Nathan Spear to Harbor Master Edward A. King for $1.
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First regular steamboat service to California inaugurated by the arrival of the Pacific Mail’s steamer California. Gen. Persifer F. Smith, new commander of the military division of California, was aboard. Thomas O. Larkin and Capt. William T. Sherman went into the bay by small boat to greet the vessel.
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Legislative Assembly of the District of San Francisco met until June 4.
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Gen. Smith, military commander of California, declared the Yerba Buena harbor to be poor because the seas are too rough and it is located on a peninsula with little water and few food supplies.
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Chilean ship “Julia” ran aground on the Presidio Shoals.
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Brevet Brigadier General Bennet Riley, arrived with his brigade aboard the “U.S.S. Iowa” at Monterey.
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Brevet Gen. Riley replaced Brevet Gen. Mason as Governor of California.
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Friends of a Rail-Road to San Francisco held public meeting at the U.S. Hotel in Boston to present P. P. F. Degrand’s plan, the only one as yet proposed, which will secure promptly and certainly, and by a single act of legislation, the construction of railroad to California.
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Auction at the Leidesdorff Rancho. American Fork, the horses, mares, bullocks, and other live stock, belonging to the estate of W.A. Leidesdorff, deceased, and now on said rancho. For further particulars, enquire of Messrs. S. Brannan & Co., Sacramento City. Authorized by William Davis Merry Howard, administor of the estate of W.A. Leidesdorff who died in 1848.
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First Presbyterian Church organized by the Rev. Albert Williams in the school house on the Plaza.
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Political turmoil as Sheriff John C. Pulis seized records of Alcalde Thaddeus M. Leavenworth.
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Second general election under the state constitution takes place.
