Although Sutter and Marshall wanted to keep the discovery quiet, news of the gold find began to trickle into the countryside almost immediately. Sutter quickly lost the majority of his workers, who went prospecting for their own claims in the surrounding area. A few outsiders visited Coloma in the weeks that followed, but when these visitors took news of the discovery to San Francisco and Monterey, their stories were met with skepticism. San Francisco's two newspapers made only casual mention of the discovery in March and April.

Everything changed, however, when Sam Brannan, publisher of San Francisco'sCalifornia Star newspaper, returned from a visit to Coloma and set out to remove any doubts about the veracity of the claims. When Brannan came ashore in San Francisco, he thrust a small bottle full of gold into the air and waved his hat with his other hand. "Gold...