The discovery of gold on the magical date of January 24, 1848, when James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill near Coloma, started a rush that was unprecedented in all of the world’s history.

The discovery started a boom period to the state that lasted at least 15 years. By 1849, gold production reached $10 million, and it would not be until 1929 that production would drop below that value. 1852 was the all-time peak year, with $82 million in gold production from a total of almost four million ounces mined. Between 1850 and 1864, over one million ounces were mined every year.

In this book Frank Lorey covers the historic towns and mining locations in the eleven counties which produced the vast majority of California’s golden wealth. Most are situated along and nearby to Highway 49, known as California’s Golden Highway. Today many are nothing more than historic locations, having become ghost towns long ago, but some are still quite lively locations.

The book was developed from a popular series of articles in the California Geology and California Mining Journal magazines over the years, starting in 1985. Frank Lorey has taken many of the photographs during his travels in the area, and for a few years he lived just outside the gold rush country.