1850 +
After 1850 miners had to start using major
engineering efforts to dig out the gold. Most of the easily accessible gold had
been collected by earlier minors. The remaining big gold deposits were hidden
under rivers or in ancient riverbeds.
The new system required miles of tunnels being dug under the earth. In
1852 more than 20,000 Chinese immigrants came to California. The Chinese distinctive dress and appearance
was highly recognizable in the gold fields (Hill,1999). By 1855 it is estimated
at least 300,000 gold-seekers, merchants, and other immigrants had arrived in
California from all around the world.
The largest group of miners was still Americans but thousands came from
Mexico, China, England, and even Australia.
The second largest group of immigrants were the Chinese (Magagnini,
1998). In 1882 the mines become
unusable. Few miners stayed to recover
as much of the last few bits of gold, but during World War II, all gold mining
in the United States was stopped by an executive order. Before the order could be lifted miners had
given up on finding gold and sold the equipment used for scrap metal for the
war (Herbert,2011).