Actually, the California Gold Rush started, not in 1849, but in January 1848 when gold was found in Coloma, California. Though it is difficult to be precise, it is thought that gold worth many billions of dollars in current values was extracted, a great deal of money and a great contribution to the USA economy. For example, San Francisco grew from a few hundred residents before the discovery of gold to almost 40000 residents in a very short time. This was growth through exploitation of US natural resources (and miners) and not through exploitation of US ingenuity (though, no doubt, many miners were ingenious), which had a multiplier affect throughout the US economy, thus increasing federal government income.
