Oakland Museum of California
Giant Gold Machines Hard Rock Mining
This page gives a brief explanation of extracting hard rock quartz. This was a labor intensive process that was often dangerous, but necessary to find gold.
Oakland Museum of California
Gold Rush: Miners and Sluice Boxes
This resource provides a picture and short description of the miners' use of the sluice box.
Curated OER
Chinese Laborers Build Central Pacific Railroad Trestle in the Sierra
Published in 1924, the book, "The Story of California from the Earliest Days to the Present," by Henry K. Norton, relates the lives of the Chinese who immigrated to California to participate in the gold rush. He also recounts the...