Page 15 - 2015 Travel Guide to California

» 1848:
EUREKA!
THE EXCLAMATION “EUREKA!” —“I have found it!”—is first
attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes.
Eureka has been the name of several TV series, movies and
early automobiles. Evoking the discovery of gold in 1848, Eureka
is inscribed on the Great Seal of California as the state motto. It’s
also the name of the largest town on California’s northwestern coast.
were themselves starting over in the New World.
The Spanish built 21 Roman Catholic missions,
from San Diego in the south to Sonoma in the
north, from 1769 to 1823. In converting native com-
munities to Christianity, the newcomers
overwhelmed native cultures. Of necessity, the
Native Americans started over in a bewildering
new world.
In 1821, Mexico, with its remote northernmost
province, Alta California, wrenched itself free of the
Spanish Empire. In 1833, the missions were secular-
ized by the Mexican government and abandoned.
Their buildings moldered, their pioneering vine-
yards and olive groves were eventually overgrown
and forgotten. Not until the 20th century were the
missions restored and revived. Many flourish today
as redoubts of history and contemporary worship,
handsome, evocative reminders of the first major
European presence.
MISSION BASILICA San
Diego Alcata, above; rigging of
the tall ship Star of India in
San Diego, right; Bodie ghost
town, below.
The Gold Rush
Alta California grew slowly in its isolation. That
changed on January 24, 1848, with the discovery
of gold on the American River. The California
Gold Rush, beginning in earnest in 1849, gave for-
tune-seekers a second—some said a last—chance
to make good. Half-a-million newcomers—many
from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa—
globalized California in a hurry. The Mexican
descendants of Spanish settlers—the Californios,
with their sprawling ranchos and lives attuned to
the slow turning of the seasons—were swept
aside, left to start over.
Many 49ers stayed on and found another kind
of gold: richly productive new lives in a place
where beginning afresh—personally, financially,
even spiritually—was already a common rite of
passage. In 1850, pried loose by the U.S. victory
in the Mexican War and accelerated by the Gold
2015 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A 13