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2 0 1 7 T R A V E L G U I D E T O C A L I F O R N I A 19 Christianity, the newcomers overwhelmed native cultures. Of necessity, the Native Americans started over in a bewildering new world. In 1821, Mexico, with its remote northernmost province, Alta California, wrenched itself free of the Spanish Empire. In 1833, the missions were secularized by the Mexican government and abandoned. Their buildings moldered, their pio- neering vineyards and olive groves were eventually overgrown and forgotten. Not until the 20 th century were the missions restored and revived. Many flourish today as redoubts of his- tory and contemporary worship, handsome, evocative reminders of the first major European presence. The Gold Rush Alta California grew slowly in its isolation. That changed on January 24, 1848, with the discovery of gold on the American River. The California Gold Rush, beginning in earnest in 1849, gave for- tune-seekers a second—some said a last—chance to make good. Half-a-million newcomers—many from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa— globalized California in a hurry. The Mexican descendants of Spanish settlers—the Californios, with their sprawling ranchos and lives attuned to the slow turning of the seasons—were swept aside, left to start over. Many 49ers stayed on and found another kind of gold: richly productive new lives in a place where beginning afresh—personally, financially, even spiritually—was already a common rite of passage. In 1850, pried loose by the U.S. victory in the Mexican War and accelerated by the Gold Rush, California became the 31 st state of the United States. New Californians brought the new Golden State into being, plowing its fields, founding its great universities, building its cities. THE STARK BUT BEAUTIFUL landscape of Death Valley, top; a souvenir from the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, above; Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, also known as the Carmel Mission, right; the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego, below. » NATURE'S EXTREMES The highest point in the continental United States, 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, and the lowest point, 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley, are about 100 miles apart in Southern California.