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 . The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad . The sudden influx of immigration and gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy , and California became one of the few American states to go directly to statehood without first being a territory , in the Compromise of 1850 . The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and resulted in a precipitous population decline from disease , genocide and starvation . By the time it ended , California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory to the home state of the first nominee for the Republican Party .

Question: who discovered gold in the sierra nevada of california
Answer: James W. Marshall