Why did the gold rush happen?

Why did the gold rush happen. Well the gold rush had happened because at the time everyone had wanted to be rich. And to a lot of people at the time the gold rush had seemed like a really easy opportunity to get really rich fast and super quick. But what they didn't realize was that finding gold to get rich had took a lot of work than they had thought. And a lot of people had died just trying to get to Sacramento. Also some people had just wanted to use it for trade and good business.