Isabella Fernandez of Holy Angels School won the grand
prize in our Fourth Grade Essay Contest, with the following essay.
Kim Cordano is her teacher.
“Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” The California Gold Rush started in the year 1848. It started when workers built a mill for John Sutter. Sutter’s Mill was near the Maidu village in Coloma. While building Sutter’s Mill, the workers found a shiny rock which they showed to James Marshall, the carpenter. Marshall and Sutter tested the rock and found out it was gold! The workers and John Sutter kept it a secret. Soon after, a man named Sam Brannan found out about the gold. He went to San Francisco with gold dust and told everyone about the gold. The word did not stay in San Francisco for long as others spread the news and it started the gold rush. The people who went to search for gold in California in the year 1849 were known as the forty-niners.
Most entrepreneurs during the gold rush came to California and did not find gold. The well-known entrepreneurs during the gold rush were Ghirardelli, Levi Strauss, and Luzena Stanley Wilson. Domenico Ghirardelli, a forty-niner who came from Italy did not find much gold, so he started a business that became known for its chocolates. Levi Strauss and his family sold cloth in New York City. He opened a company that made blue jeans. Luzena Wilson started the El Dorado Hotel. It is now called Wilson Hotel. Many consumers became poor because they too did not find gold. They spent too much money on supplies. The gold rush ended in 1855. It had both good and bad effects, it brought growth to the economy, but it left some people poor.
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