Episode 1 of 2
Gold Discovery at Sutter's Mill
- When
- January 24, 1848
- Where
- American River channel bed
James W. Marshall discovered gold flecks in the channel bed below Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848, in Coloma, California.
Marshall, a carpenter and sawmill operator, noticed shiny flecks in the channel bed while examining it. This discovery occurred at Coloma, a settlement on the American River, and was reported by Marshall. The event set off the California gold rush, a major historical event.
Sources
- James W. Marshall Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-15
- Sutter's Mill Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-04
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.