California Gold Rush Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers
On what date did the California gold rush begin?
A: January 24, 1848?
What was the name of the man who found gold at Sutter's Mill in California?
A: James W. Marshall.
The discovery of gold in California brought how many people from all over the world to
hunt for gold?
A: 300,000.
Ships' captains found that their crews deserted to go to the gold fields. The wharves and docks of
San Francisco were filled with
hundreds of abandoned ships whose crews had gone looking for what?
A: Gold.
Who were the "49ers"?
A: The hunters of gold because it began in 1849.
These tens of thousands of seekers-of-gold were from Latin
America, Europe,
Australia and Asia, but most were from where?
A: America.
In the beginning the gold nuggets could be what?
A: Picked up off the ground.
By 1850, most of the easily gotten gold had been found, and
with gold increasingly difficult to retrieve, Americans began to drive out who?
A: Foreigners.
The 49ers recovered gold from streams and riverbeds using
simple techniques, such as what?
A: Panning.
During the gold rush, which California city grew from a
small settlement of about 200 in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852?
A: San Francisco.
The first large group of gold hunters to make it to the
gold fields were several thousand Oregonians who came down the what?
A: Siskiyou Trail.
In 1849 in California, a state constitution was written,
and a what were chosen?
A: Governor and legislature.
By 1869 railroads were built across the country, and by
1869 they connected California to the what?
A: Eastern United States.
At the start of California's Gold Rush, there were no
laws
regarding what in the goldfields?
A: Property rights.
James W. Marshall was a foreman working for John Sutter, a
Sacramento pioneer, building what when he discovered gold?
A: A lumber mill.
The most famous quote of the California Gold Rush was by
newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan who strode through the streets
of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting what?
A: "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
California at the time of the gold rush, was part of a
Mexican territory and was ceded to the U.S. on February 2, 1848, less than two
weeks after the discovery of gold with what treaty?
A: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Of the approximately 90,000 people who arrived in
California in 1849, about how many were Americans?
A: 50,000 to 60,000.
How many people had arrived in California for the gold rush
by 1855?
A: At least 300,000.
The New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the
East Coast to report the discovery of what in California?
A: Gold.
On December 5, 1848 who confirmed the discovery of gold in California in an address to Congress?
A: President James Polk.
People from small villages in the hills near Genova,
Italy
were among the first people to settle permanently where?
A: The Sierra Nevada foothills.
In the gold rush period there was no easy way to get to
California and forty-niners faced hardship and often faced what on the way.
A: Death from things like shipwrecks, typhoid fever and cholera.
Between 1849 and 1852 more than 20,000 Chinese people
landed in what California city?
A: San Francisco.
Early on, prospectors could work for six months in the
goldfields and end up with how many years equivalent worth of wages from back
home?
A: Six years.
From the East Coast, a sailing voyage around the tip of
South America to get to California would take how long?
A: Five to eight months.