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Most Californians don't even know the "official" story of the Gold Rush. Text books tend to simplify it. Everyone thinks of Sutter's Mill... but that's not what really set off the gold rush per se. In the overall picture, the few flakes found at Sutter's Mill were minimal. It did contribute, no doubt... but it was only that combined with the discovery of larger nuggets at Mormon Island that really caused a stir. Many of the workers at the Mill were Mormons living on or near Mormon Island. They knew about the gold flakes that Marshall "found" (he gets credit for it, but many think one of the workers found it and gave it to him instead) and many of them began looking for gold near their homes or on their spare time at the mill. It only took a few weeks, though, for people to notice. The mill workers were buying goods with the gold that they were finding and Samuel Brannan was kind of the "big mouth" who started it all. Brannan, also a Mormon, owned a general store. When the workers were paying for stuff with gold, he got curious... found out what was going on and then made sure other people knew about it. Brannan was a newspaper man originally, so it came naturally.

He got kind of greedy, though. He started price gouging at his store. And then started embezzling money from the Church. He also became a raging drunk. Obviously, the Church eventually kicked him out, too, and he he went from being a millionaire to dead broke.

Many of the Mormons that were present at the start of the gold rush quickly left because of discrimination. So, while they have pretty started the gold rush, they didn't participate too much.