On Hwy-49, off 1-80 or Hwy-50, 50 miles East of Sacramento. On January 24th 1848, James Marshall was building a sawmill for land owner John Sutter when he spotted flakes of gold in the American River on a site that is now the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. A museum tracing the colossal impact of Marshall’s find stands in the park, as does a working replica of Sutter’s Mill and the rustic cabin where a depressed James Marshall died broke in 1879 – never having benefited from the discovery that made millions of dollars and changed the entire course of California’s history – www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=484.