WI: No Gold Rush

TFSmith121

Banned
Marshall et al's discovery was in January, 1848;

the reason the emigrants became known as Forty-niners is that is when the news really got around the world, but the rush was on within weeks, with emigrants coming from across the Pacific Slope, Hawaii, Mexico, and South America.

And even if it wasn't Marshall in January, given the amount of activity in the Sierra foothills after the end of the US-Mexican War, somebody would have come across gold in one or another of the multiple rivers, creeks, and streams that feed into the Sacramento.

Cripes, it might have been one of the Donner Party survivors.

Best,
 
Definitely delayed California statehood. If the gold rush is pushed past the Civil War, perhaps the CSA could carve out a sort of "Southern California", like what they did when they made the Arizona Territory.
 
Definitely delayed California statehood. If the gold rush is pushed past the Civil War, perhaps the CSA could carve out a sort of "Southern California", like what they did when they made the Arizona Territory.

The CSA never got even close to being in a position to carve anything out of California, except on paper. How would no gold rush change that?
 
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