You think it's tough finding housing in San Francisco now, the Gold Rush was astounding; 1,000 SF residents in 1849 and just three years later, 36,000! Here are other jaw-dropping facts from recent reading:
"One doctor estimated that between 1851 and 1853, 20% of the people who came to California seeking gold died within six months of their arrival."[i]
And it was a deadly journey as well: "a government report estimated that each mile of the 2,000-mile journey [west] cost 17 lives – a total of 34,000 lives. Any such figure is at best a good guess; but nevertheless, the number of deaths is staggering." [ii]
"San Francisco became a United States territory in 1846 [and] had a population, not counting Indians, of less than 8,000 in 1846. Then came the gold rush, and 115,000 persons, mostly male, were added to California's population."[iii]
"This rapid growth led many people to live in cramped, unsanitary conditions, whether in tents or other dwellings, and San Francisco didn't have any real hospitals or a formalized system of health care. Several deadly diseases, including cholera, malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, smallpox and scurvy, rampaged through [San Francisco's] the city's population."[iv]
By 1900, the city's population was 342,782."
[i] [San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History by Beth Winegarner, History Press, Charleston SC, 2023]
[ii] Page 15 of Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1840 to 1849, edited and compiled by Kenneth L Holmes
[iii] Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1840 to 1849, edited and compiled by Kenneth L Holmes
[iv] San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History by Beth Winegarner, History Press, Charleston SC, 2023