Interesting note: Many of the men working at and around Sutter's Mill in 1848 were Mormons sent west on a sailing ship(around the Horn) to California by Brigham Young. A few of them were 'southern boys' from Alabama and Georgia who quickly realized the terrain in the hills west of the Sierra Nevada resembled home, and were likely to contain Gold deposits. They started looking and the rest is history.
Interestingly, the man who ran the assayer's office in Dahlonega, GA, pleaded with miners departing for California to not leave Georgia.
Looking and pointing to the Georgia mountains he was heard to loudly proclaim, "There's gold in them thar hills!"