Sacramento, the capital of California, appears in this near-vertical photograph. A deep water port, via a channel to Suisun Bay, Sacramento is the major shipping, rail, processing, and marketing center for the truck farms of the Sacramento Valley. The Sacramento River approaches the city from the north. The American River travels eastward through Folsum Lake to the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. The discovery of gold at Sutters Mill in 1848, just east of Folsum Lake, started the 1849 California Gold Rush. Sacramento was the western terminus of the Pony Express in the 1850s and early 1860s.