It was January 1848. A man was  gambledtripminersdiggingshiny-goldforty-ninersloafquicklysharedfortune near the small village of San Francisco, California. Suddenly, he saw something  diggingquicklyforty-ninerstripshiny-goldminerssharedloaffortunegambled! By the next year, the California gold rush had begun. Thousands of men came to California. They were called "forty-niners," after the year 1849. The  minerssharedloafshiny-goldfortuneforty-ninersdiggingtripquicklygambled came from all around the United States. They even came from other countries, including Mexico, Australia, China, France, and England. They left their families and jobs and made the difficult  loafdiggingminersshiny-goldquicklyfortunegambledsharedtripforty-niners to California. They all  gambleddiggingquicklyfortuneminersloafshiny-goldtripsharedforty-niners a dream. They all wanted to make a  forty-ninersshareddiggingloafquicklytripminersfortunegambledshiny-gold in gold. Towns and camps grew  sharedfortuneshiny-goldtripdigginggambledquicklyforty-ninersloafminers wherever gold was found. These towns were rough places. There was almost always a saloon, where the men drank whiskey and  diggingshiny-goldloafsharedquicklygambledminersforty-ninersfortunetrip at cards. In mining towns, men stole and sometimes killed for gold. Did the miners make their fortunes? Some did, especially those who came early and were lucky. In 1848,  fortuneloafminersgambledtripquicklyshiny-golddiggingsharedforty-niners usually made about twenty dollars a day. In 1852, miners made about six dollars a day. Many other people came to California to make money from the miners. Prices were very high. A  forty-ninersdiggingloafsharedminersquicklygambledfortunetripshiny-gold of bread, which cost five cents in New York, cost almost a dollar in San Francisco. In 1848, San Francisco had been a village. Six years later, it was a city with a population of 50,000. In 1850, California had enough people to become a state.