The American people largely believed it was the Manifest Destiny of the United States to expand westward. Sports. So a 49er is, literally, a gold digger, as umm.. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.. so eloquently(?) The old 49er has long been a beloved figure in the state’s lore. California Gold Rush/ John Sutter/ 49ers. End of the Gold Rush Just as the towns supporting the rush to find gold rose and fell, so, too, did the ability to find gold. FORTY-NINERSFORTY-NINERS. In January 1848, a foreman working in a sawmill owned by John Sutter (one of Californias leading ranchers) found traces of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. San Francisco 49ers, American football team, named for the California Gold Rush prospectors and based on Santa Clara, CA. Gold-seekers from Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and China continued to sail across the Pacific along well-established trade routes. The journey was far more complicated for citizens of the United States. In the next year, close to 100,000 people went to California from the United States, Europe, and every other corner of the globe. Word about gold had spread quickly through out California, the rest of America and eventually reached out to the world .News has lured a stampede of people to seek their fortune. 49ers Gold Rush James Marshall found gold on his farm in January of 1848, and once he found it, it quickly spread through California and through the world and many people started to immigrate to the west. Actually, the reference stems from the original definition of a 49er, the wave of settlers looking to strike it big in the gold rush to California in 1849. See more. The forty niners are referred to as that because of they were the rush of people that arrived in the year 1849 to find gold. Most of these treasure seekers left for California in 1849, hence our name for them: 49ers. The siege of the Alamo, the Mexican War, and the 49er Gold Rush were some of the most important defining events during this time. The California Gold Rush was a remarkable episode in history sparked by the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, a remote outpost in California, in January 1848. Most 49ers sought gold through panning, a process of washing gravel in dirt to see if they could find gold in the pan. – corsiKa Nov 12 '14 at 20:59 Forty-niner definition, a person, especially a prospector, who went to California in 1849 during the gold rush. use the term. California gold rush (1849) thousands of miners travel to Northern California after news reports of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world. San Francisco’s professional football team, the 49ers, was named in honor of the men who came to California during the Gold Rush. The first to find gold tried to keep it secret, but the strike was too huge to conceal. 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