Why did the Gold Rush start?

Hargraves, who took a proprietary interest in the whole phenomenon, christened the place Ophir, after a fabled gold-producing region in the Old Testament. The local paper, the Bathurst Free Press, prophesied ‘a complete social revolution’ in Australia, and was not so far wrong. read more

The commonly discussed California gold rush of 1848 began with the simple finding of gold specks/small nuggets in Sacramento Valley on John Sutter’s ranch (though the actual finding of the original gold was discovered by his farmhand, James Marshall). read more