The park's namesake, James Marshall, came to the area in the mid-1800s to set up a lumber mill. Although small amounts of gold were found in other parts of California, the discovery at Sutter's Mill spurred one of the largest mass-migrations in history, which brought people to California in droves. " When he saw some gold nuggets in the channel below the mill in January of 1848, he picked those up and the word spread quickly, " Reg said. " The world rushed in and the population went from zero to hundreds of thousands in a very short time. At that time, all of your tools and weapons and farming equipment was made by blacksmiths, so they had 15 of them working in that little town very quickly - without them you were literally in the Stone Age. " MAGAZINE 33