The Gold Rush of 1849 was born basically of desperation on the part of eastern people caught in a jobless situation with no hopes of having a home or business to sustain them in what we refer to as "our retirement years".

When Gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California, the common man saw a chance of becoming wealthy or at least claiming land for a home 'out west'.

Some of these travelers stopped in what is now Colorado, hoping to find gold there instead of crossing the desert country to get to California.  One such person was a man from Georgia by the name of Green Russell along with his Cherokee wife and their Indian friends and relatives.  While finding some color in their pans, Mr Russell decided to continue on to California, leaving his family behind.

He had been in California sometime when he received word that they had made sizable strikes in places known now as "Tincup & Cripple Creek", so he returned to Colorado.  The Gold Strike made news back east and thus the people(some of the old miners from Ireland) and other diggers headed for Colorado.  From this rush came towns like Leadville, Idaho Springs, Denver and the like.
  Small towns now, but busting at the seams (Leadville was 20,000 and growing) were sprining up every time a new strike was found.  Many are ghost towns now but the gold is still flowing down the mountains sides in the same streams as then.
  People have more secure lives now and no reason to go searching for gold now, but it is still there waiting for you or the next adventurer.

I panned these streams and more for 20 plus years just for the joy of finding new "placers" as they are called.