Finding the gold in Golden State

TEXT OF STORY

MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: Time to take a peek in the Marketplace Vault for a look at this week in the history of business. Inside, something that made California very popular.

BUGS BUNNY: There’s gold in them thar hills!

STACEY VANEK-SMITH: This week back in 1848, gold was discovered along the banks of Sutter’s Creek in California.

In the months that followed, the press went wild, describing 30-pound gold nuggets and men earning a lifetime’s fortune in half a day.

The strike at Sutter’s and the stories that followed sparked the largest gold rush in history.

BUGS BUNNY: Gold! Gold! I’m rich, I’m rich! I’m faaaabulously wealthy!

All told, about 300,000 so-called 49ers flooded into the Golden State. At the time, California was a remote and fairly lawless place.

The population boom created a humming economy almost overnight, and California joined the Union in 1850.

I’m Stacey Vanek-Smith.