when was the gold rush

The famous California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, and it peaked in the early 1850s.

Quick Scoop

• The California Gold Rush is usually what people mean by “the” Gold Rush. It started with James W. Marshall’s discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill on January 24, 1848.

• The rush drew hundreds of thousands of people (the “forty-niners”) in 1849 and the early 1850s, with activity peaking around 1852.

• Historians often date the broader California Gold Rush era from about 1848 to the late 1850s, when the richest, easiest deposits were exhausted.

In short: when someone asks “when was the gold rush,” the classic answer is 1848–1850s, starting with the 1848 Sutter’s Mill discovery in California.

TL;DR: It kicked off in 1848 in California and was at its height around 1849–1852.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.