People come to California from all over the United States and the world, by land and by sea. The gold rush compresses a half century of normal growth into a half decade. Squatters take over Sutter's land throughout the Sacramento Valley. A partial exodus of miners takes place when gold is discovered on the Fraser River in British Columbia. 1854 Sacramento becomes the state capital.
Many people take their earnings and leave the state.
People are still looking for gold in the mountain streams, but it is not being found as easy as before. All that is left of the fort is the main building. The U.S. Supreme Court denies the validity of John Sutter's Sobrante land grant. Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker begin planning for a Transcontinental railroad. Soon, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas join South Carolina.