Engraving of a miners' encampment in the Sacramento Valley
1849
J. H. Richardson's engraving of tents and prospectors in the gold country appeared in Holden's Dollar Magazine in New York in 1849. Pictures like this were how East Coast readers first saw the rush that turned San Francisco from a village into a port city within a year. The magazine is preserved in the Internet Archive.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Part of San Francisco · Watch in the documentary