How Ghost Towns Began at the End of the Gold Rush

After the gold deposits ran out the people moved on out and this is when the Ghost Towns started to show up. Before 1850, the camps of Canyonville and Washington on Yuba River no longer had people living in them. By the winter of 1852 Dame Shirley’s Rich Bar was abandoned as well.

By 1853 the independent miners were no longer able to make enough for a living by panning the gravels that were left. When this occurred many of the miners decided it would be best to join with other miners; so they built giant sluice boxes they called “Long Toms” to wash massive amounts of dirt so they could get to the gold they required in order to make a living.

The miners would gather together and build Long Toms and would then scoop the dirt into the sluice boxes while other men worked on moving the dirt over the riffles. They would then divide and share the gold they had found at the end of the day.

This did not last long though and after awhile it was evident this was not an efficient system any longer because they were no longer able to support the loads of people that were in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Soon enough, bigger companies started to mine the veins that had fed the streams while there were others that would use huge hoses to force big streams of water onto the canyon walls that contained gold bearing gravels. The walls were washed away into sluice boxes and the gold was then picked out.

After the moment of glory ended the 49ers either returned to their homelands or became involved in a different type of business in their new home. At the same time there were other people that moved on to places such as Tombstone, Comstock Lode, etc. Other people decided to see how it would go in the desert to work the placers there, and later on some people moved to Alaska.

The first person that actually found the gold in the stream bed in the mother lode, James Marshall, ended up traveling the foothills for years trying to find gold of his own but he was not very successful at this though. He decided to go back to the fort and his previous boss, John Sutter, offered him some provisions, pack animals and Indians. Marshall was what you could call very odd man though and after a short time the Indians decided they did not want to travel with him any further.

The prospectors knowing that James Marshall had been the first to discover the gold, would on many occasions follow him since they thought he had some secret skill at finding gold and many of these people did indeed find a great quantity of gold. After the discovery in Sutter’s Mill, James Marshall was at the area near Deer Creek, close to Nevada City but he ended up leaving empty handed. Interestingly enough though, around one year later, over five thousand miners were working there and they produced $378,000,000 within the next years.

Marshall became a spiritualist and lured people by telling them he was going lead them to a great fortune. He began making claims that he had special powers to find gold, and he was often times followed and on some occasions even threatened. He ended up settling down in Kelsey that was located only a few miles away from Coloma. Here Marshall operated a blacksmith shop and sold his autograph on small pieces of paper to make some extra cash. He ended up turning into an alcoholic and often times depended on friends for support.

James Marshall passed away a lonely and bitter man in 1885 at age of 74; he never reached the pleasure in the wealth he helped others to find. He was buried under a statue that was made of him in the State Historic Park that bears his name. The monument was built in 1890, not far from Marshall's cabin. After Marshall’s death, Sutter said, “His spirits never led him to his fortune”.

The gold rush ended in 1855.