Famous Gold Rushes
Gold Rush↕ | Started↕ | Location↕ | Country↕ | Prospectors↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California Gold Rush | 1848 | Sutter's Mill, Sierra Nevada | United States | 300,000 Forty-Niners | Started by James Marshall, transformed California into a state, San Francisco boom |
| Klondike Gold Rush | 1896 | Yukon Territory | Canada | 100,000 (30,000 arrived) | Chilkoot Pass, Dawson City boomtown, inspired Jack London and Chaplin's Gold Rush |
| Witwatersrand Gold Rush | 1886 | Witwatersrand basin | South Africa | 100,000+ | Founded Johannesburg, world's largest gold deposit, led to Boer War tensions |
| Victorian Gold Rush | 1851 | Ballarat, Bendigo | Australia | 500,000+ | Eureka Stockade rebellion 1854, tripled Australia's population, Melbourne boom |
| Black Hills Gold Rush | 1874 | Black Hills, Dakota Territory | United States | 10,000+ | Violated Lakota treaty, Deadwood boomtown, Wild Bill Hickok's death |
| Pike's Peak Gold Rush | 1858 | Colorado Rockies | United States | 100,000 'Fifty-Niners' | 'Pike's Peak or Bust' slogan, founded Denver, created Colorado Territory |
| Fraser Canyon Gold Rush | 1858 | Fraser River, BC | Canada | 30,000 | Triggered creation of British Columbia colony, conflict with Nlaka'pamux |
| Otago Gold Rush | 1861 | Central Otago | New Zealand | 18,000 | Made Dunedin New Zealand's largest city, Chinese miner immigration |
| Siberian Gold Rush | 1840 | Lena River basin | Russia | Tens of thousands serfs | Tsarist gold monopoly, Lena Massacre 1912 of striking miners |
| Brazilian Gold Rush | 1693 | Minas Gerais | Brazil | 400,000 Portuguese + 500,000 enslaved | Largest gold rush in Americas before California, Ouro Preto baroque towns |
| Nome Gold Rush | 1899 | Nome, Alaska | United States | 20,000+ | Beach gold on Bering Sea, inspired Wyatt Earp to open saloon, Iditarod origin |
| Bathurst Gold Rush | 1851 | Ophir, New South Wales | Australia | Thousands | First Australian gold rush, Edward Hargraves discovery, triggered Victorian rush |
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