The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, near Sacramento. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The Gold Rush reinvigorated the American economy, and California became one of the few American states to go directly to statehood without first being a territory.