Discovery Of Gold In American West Essay

, Research Paper

The discovery of gold in California sparked a massive emigration across the continent to the Pacific coast by Americans searching for wealth. This massive migration of people brought Jefferson’s dream of a continental American empire to reality, and began to establish the United States as the dominant country in North America. This massive migration also prompted the need to bridge the nation for the purpose of making the trip from one coast to another easier. This resulting need to bridge the nation might be the greatest contribution of the gold rush to the history of the United States.

On January 24th, 1848, James Marshall discovered what he believed to be Gold dust in the bed of a creek right outside his mill. He brought this sample of the shiny material up to Ft. Sutter in Sacramento, where it was deemed indeed to be gold, and thus the migration of massive amounts of people we call the gold rush began. In two years after the discovery of gold, the population of California was 90.000 people. At the time of the discovery California was relatively uninhabited by Americans. The United States had finally realized its dream of a country reaching from sea to shining sea, but now that the lands were there, the United States had to figure out how to get its people to settle these lands so they would actually be worth having. It is great for a country to have a lot of land, but if they remain uninhabited and underdeveloped then the land really isn’t worth much. The “gold rush” consisted of many prospectors seeking to find their fortunes in the mines of California. The emigration of so many Americans to the very western boundary of the country was exactly what the Government needed for the lands it just purchased to be seen as a wise investment. In the two years since the discovery of gold the population of California ballooned to 90 thousand people, most of which were prospectors, and others trying to get rich quick off the discovery of gold. By 1854, the population reached an even more impressive 300 thousand people. Many people moved out west to escape the cities of the east and set off on their own, be free. The migration into these uninhabited lands increased the need for transportation like roads, railroads, and canals as well as the opportunities for work and another incentive for people to move out of the cities where there was a large incidence of unemployment.

With the discovery of gold and the massive migration of emigrants westward, came the need to be able to more quickly traverse the continent for both communication, and transportation. The answer to this need was the transcontinental railroad. By the middle of the 1850’s, the need for a transcontinental railroad was universally accepted and acknowledged. Before now, the best way to get from the east coast to the west coast was through the Isthmus of Panama. Between 1848 and 1869, the completion of this railroad, 375 thousand people crossed Panama on their way to California and the gold, and another 225 thousand crossed the isthmus in the other direction. Along with this massive movement of people came great wealth crossing the isthmus, creating even more of a call for the development and creation of a railroad. This crossing of Panama was very hazardous to the health of the people who crossed it. Cholera, among other deadly diseases was very prevalent among the travelers and often took many lives. The increased traffic going to the west coast along with the hazardous conditions of the next best available routes led to the inception of the idea of building a transcontinental railroad.

By 1850 there were 9,021 miles of functioning track in the United States, but nothing that connected the east coast and the west coast. During the 1850’s, an average of 2,160 miles of new track was laid every year. With the increase in the formation of functioning track throughout the 1850’s, the development of locomotives that are more powerful and more stable cars permitted engineering feats that seemed impossible a decade earlier. Railroad fever clearly had the nation in its grips and it was just a matter of time before a railroad that crossed the continent would be built. A New York businessman, Asa Whitney, was the first to propose the idea of a transcontinental railroad in 1845. He proposed a route along the northern border we share with Canada. Before the gold rush, he was largely ignored, but afterwards he was taken seriously, and by 1853 it was realized that one was needed and that huge government subsidies would be needed to build it. Upon this realization of the need for a transcontinental railroad came the realization that whichever eastern city was the head of the railroad would become immensely wealthier, and so begun a major struggle between the cities of the east to obtain the rights to be the eastern hub. The amendment to the Army appropriations act allowed a quarter of a million dollars for the railroad to be completed in ten months, and listed five possible routes that it could take. The Northern Route, from St. Paul to Seattle, The council Bluffs to San Francisco route, the Central route, between the 38th and 39th parallels from the arkensas river to San Francisco, The route from Fort Smith along the Arkansas River to Los Angelos, and the southern route from fulton on the red River to san Diego. Diferent people would benefit from each of these routes and there was much fighting ove