CHAPTER 1 THE GOLDEN STATE People People have long come to California seeking opportunity For sports fans the state has no shortage of opportunities to both watch and participate in sports California boasts more professional sports teams than any other state The state also has some of the most successful college sports programs and hosts many major sporting events Like the state itself though most of its teams are relatively young People come from all over the world to visit or live in California 5
American Indians were the first people to settle in California They arrived thousands of years ago In the 1500s Spanish explorers landed in California It wasn’t until well into the 1800s that they colonized the area That’s why many places in California have Spanish names The area changed greatly in the late 1840s In 1847 prospectors discovered gold in California By the next year the Gold Rush had begun Approximately 100,000 people flocked to the area hoping to get rich At the time California was part of Mexico But when the Mexican American War 1846 1848 ended Mexico was forced to give the territory to the United States Two years later in 1850 California was admitted as the 31st state The Gold Rush spurred a population boom By 1860 California’s population had tripled to 308,000 Gold remained important but other 6
The Gold Rush helped San Francisco become the biggest city on the west coast of the United States in the 1800s natural resources took off as well The state’s agriculture industry boomed as farmers grew wheat oranges and other crops Even with the Gold Rush California remained somewhat isolated It was the only state on the West Coast until Oregon joined the United States in 1859 However most of the other western territories were still decades away from statehood 7
