# California gold rush

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-gold-rush/997247>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 7, 2024, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-gold-rush/997247 "2024-02-07T16:07:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 11

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-gold-rush/997247/11 "2024-02-07T20:20:55Z")

</div>

> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Steamship businesses were big winners early on as most of the prospectors traveled to California by sea and most of their supplies were sent that way.

Except many ships were simply abandoned by their crews and left rotting.

> [@Schnitte](#):
>
> They were, however, often struggling to find a crew willing to sail the ship back - in many cases, sailors who came to California on a ship deserted to mine for gold themselves.

Yep.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-gold-rush/997247)._