Abstract
When gold was discovered at Sutter's mill by John Marshall on January 24, 1848, thousands of Americans, Europeans, Orientals and Mexicans flocked to California. Bancroft estimated California to have in residence in mid-1848 about 14,000 persons. In the next eighteen months this population was swollen to 107,057 persons by January 1, 1850. California's continued growth and expansion is made clear by the Eighth United States Census (1860) which counted 380,000. This study concerns one permanent city, Folsom, which lived on after the gold fever subsided, and managed to adapt itself to its surroundings in a manner sufficient to meet the needs of its citizens. Folsom is the product of the fusing, for common purposes, of a number of gold camps within a two mile radius of Folsom. When these gold camps began to decline, their citizens, realizing their potential fate, converged upon Folsom in an effort to continue their prosperity. This study organizes, correlates and condenses records, memoirs, and histories of the early days of Folsom, covering the years 1842-1862.