"Gold. Gold! GOLD!"

 On January 24, 1848, James W Marshall was working in the South Fork of the American River when he found gold. And California was forever changed.

Today, the gold discovery site and surrounding area has been turned into a state historical park.

At the entrance to the visitor's center are signs with information about the Gold Rush.

There is a museum, while it looks small, is packed with exhibits and educational signs to read. One could spend hours learning about how California became the Golden State.

Mannequins show a reenactment of looking in the river.

There are animal pelts on display so you could feel the texture.

Did I grow antlers???

Someone is asleep in the tree.

What gold bits looked like in the top of Marshall's hat.

A timeline of things leading up to the discovery.

A real water feature, I always like these.

Cute family of quail.

Lots of little animals hiding in the flora.

It's been estimated that only twenty percent of California's gold has been found and extracted. That is a lot of gold still out there! People are still allowed to make a claim and try to find it, but the conditions are so harsh that it is not worth it at this time.

This is a fantastic backdrop. This is at the entrance of the main room. More decorating ideas for my future house!

Highway 49 is the main route through much of Gold Country.

Other rocks that have been found.

Gold is only valuable "because humans decided it was."

The pans people used in the early days to sort the gold from sediment.

This can't have been a comfortable way to get around.

They had a neat display that showed how much gold was worth how much in certain years.

How much am I worth in gold?

Wow!

This was a neat book they had on display with stories about people from the Gold Rush.

One of the early machines used to sort gold nuggets from dirt and rocks.

Did I find any gold?

Now this is the true gold - wine!

After spending a good amount of time reading about the Gold Rush, watching the videos, and looking at the displays, it was time to head outside to see the site where gold was discovered, and to look at the town of Coloma itself.