On January 24, James Marshall, who was an American carpenter and sawmill operator, saw something that caught his attention. It was gold. “It made my heart skip a beat, because I was sure it was gold,” he said. He was building a sawmill along the American River for John Sutter, a Swiss German pioneer. Marshall then rushed back to his workers to show what he had found. After showing his crew, he rushed to Sutter's Fort, which today is located near Sacramento, California. The two tried to keep the word about the gold low-key, because Sutter feared his plan with his mill would be ruined. But word spread and soon everyone learned of the discovery. At first many did not believe the discovery was true, but few knew what California was like. Sam Brannan, a store owner on Sutters Creek, changed everyone's minds in May 1848. When he returned from San Francisco, he broke a bottle to show the gold dust flying out of it. Sam Brannan later became the first millionaire. Then, on March 15, a newspaper, The Californian, published the first story about gold. Soon the towns and cities became smaller and smaller for everyone. Most of the men set out in search of gold. Soon John Sutter began losing workers as well. They too wanted to go looking for gold and hope to get rich. As many people left their homes in search of gold, word spread and soon different parts of the world discovered gold. At first there were only two routes to California, a sea voyage or the overland route. With the sea voyage it took about six months to finally arrive in California. It would start in New York and go around the tip of South America to San Diego or San Francisco. On many of these ships several people suffered from seasickness. Also… in the center of the paper… rock the base back and forth to separate the dirt and gold. As miners panned for gold they had to begin protecting their land, known as reclaiming. There were also people called "claim jumpers", these people would try to steal the best mining stops that had already been claimed. Many of these argue that the jumpers would kill the miner if there was a chance for gold. During the gold rush two newspapers closed in San Francisco because they too had gold rush fever. As time passed and more and more people came looking for gold, there was less and less gold. Yet people came to see if they could find any. In 1855 the gold rush ended because no one could find the gold. As time went by there were several sightings of gold. In Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, but these camps only lasted about a year. None are as great as the California Gold Rush.