A Day of Discovery at Sutter’s Mill, 1848

On January 24, 1848, California was still Mexican territory in name, a remote frontier of pine-covered Sierra foothills, rushing rivers, and scattered ranchos. John Sutter’s mill at Coloma on the South Fork of the American River was a half-finished wooden sawmill, built by carpenter James Wilson Marshall and a crew of Mormon Battalion veterans plus Maidu Indian laborers. Marshall, a 37-year-old New Jersey native, had come west seeking land and work. That Monday morning he inspected the tailrace as usual. What he found in the gravel would remake the United States...

Read it here: Time Surfing: Graphic History.