The Confluence

Prior to James Marshall's discovery of gold at nearby Sutter's Mill (on the South Fork) in 1848, only a handful of people of European origin, trappers mostly, had been to what is now called the Confluence, where the North Fork and the Middle Fork of the American River meet.

Looking upstream, the North Fork on the left and the Middle Fork on the right.

Looking downstream.

Whenever I go to the Confluence, I never fail to think of how the first argonauts literally picked up gold nuggets from the riverbanks; how with tin cups they scooped up gold from the shallow gravels; and how with knives they pried gold from the quartz veins in the exposed slate. The world will never see that again.

And then I say a silent "Thank You" to our eleventh president, James K. Polk, for provoking the war with Mexico that brought California and its wonderful American River into the United States.

View from Stagecoach Trail.

The Confluence was crawling with people during the early days of the Gold Rush. They pitched their tents on any reasonably level ground available. It was a frenetic and violent time, as told by such place names as Murderer's Bar and Robber's Roost. The miners meted out their own justice, for government authority did not extend this far. Once the easy gravels had been worked, the miners joined together to build large wooden flumes to divert the river and reach the gold at bedrock. When that gold was collected, the era of placer mining was over, and the miners left the Confluence.

Gold still flows downstream and collects at the Confluence, and it draws the recreational goldpanners.