After the Gold Rush

When gold was discovered in 1848, around 300,000 people came to California from all over the world. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers became highways to the gold country.

Fleets of sailing ships and steamboats brought people and supplies from San Fransisco to Sacramento. Many of these ships docked at the new settlement of Brazos del Rio. Renamed Rio Vista in 1860, the town supported a burgeoning commercial trade for local settlements.

Scores of settlers soon discovered that the Delta's rich peat soil was a resource just as valuable as gold for growing crops. Settlements emerged on the river's natural levees and efforts were made to reclaim tidal marsh for agriculture.

Shipping on the Delta eventually decreased as a result of the railroad, and of waterways that became choked with mud and debris from hydraulic mining operations upstream.

(caption:) Scow schooners like Alma had flat-bottomed hulls designed to navigate the shallow waters of the Delta and to rest on the bottom at low tide. . This historical marker was erected by California State Parks. It is Near Isleton in Sacramento County California