News about the gold in California soon spread. By summer, people were saying that thousands of dollars in gold had been found.
In December 1848, U.S. President James K. Polk said that was true. The California Gold Rush was officially on! From 1848 to 1858, more than 300,000 people came to California to find gold. Most came in 1849. They were called “forty-niners.” The Gold Rush was the largest migration in U.S. history. A migration is a huge movement of people.
