In 1857, the U.S. mail ship SS Central America lef...  ...1857, the U.S. mail ship SS Central America left California for the East Coast. Aboard were 477 passengers, m...  ...477 passengers, many of them newly rich from the California Gold Rush . They were returning home with their gold...

Before the California Golf Rush , San Francisco had a population of about 500 peop...  ...s, but those were long-term projects. The news of gold changed everything. In 1849 and 1850, one out of...  ...1850, one out of every 100 Americans traveled to *strong class="matched-kw...