Though you can still pan on your own in certain areas on the river, the organised panning takes place behind Bekearts Shop on raised wooden tubs (which is much easier on your backs).

The “49ers” stood bent over in their claims on the American river and panned all day. On top of this, panning for gold was back breaking work. You can only imagine what it was like: alcohol was considered medicine, there weren’t laws about claims (just guidelines), living expenses were extortionate (an egg was $1) and many didn’t find there fortune. There’s a small museum with a film and then you can walk around the site where at it’s peak nearly 50,000 crowded together in hopes of amassing their fortunes. Excited, he showed the others on the camp. The park is on the exact site where James Marshall found a gold nugget in the run off water from Sutter’s Mill. We met the lovely Jamie, a park ranger who is very knowledgeable about the Gold Rush. The park is about 45 minutes north of Sacramento (and only 6 miles from our scheduled afternoon whitewater rafting trip meet-up point). We arrived at Marshall Gold Discovery State Histroic Park when they opened at 10 am. When word of gold got out, more than 300,000 people rushed to the foothills to find it.

At the time, California was part of Mexico, with only a couple thousand inhabitants. When it was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848 in Coloma, it changed California forever. There’s something about gold that makes people dream. After she bought herself a jacuzzi and art supply store, she told me she’d get me a new dress. When our youngest heard we were going panning for gold in California’s Gold Country north of Sacramento, she started planning how she would spend the fortune she would amass.

California gold rush for kids