Georgia Gold Rush
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The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant
gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...
in the
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and the first in Georgia, and overshadowed the previous rush in North Carolina. It started in 1829 in present-day Lumpkin County near the county seat,
Dahlonega The city of Dahlonega () is the county seat of Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,242, and in 2018 the population was estimated to be 6,884. Dahlonega is located at the north end of ...
, and soon spread through the
North Georgia mountains The Georgia Mountains Region or North Georgia mountains or Northeast Georgia is an area that starts in the northeast corner of Georgia, United States, and spreads in a westerly direction. The mountains in this region are in the Blue Ridge mount ...
, following the Georgia Gold Belt. By the early 1840s, gold became difficult to find. Many Georgia miners moved west when gold was found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848, starting the California Gold Rush. Since the 16th century, American Indians in Georgia told
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
an explorers that the small amounts of gold which they possessed came from mountains of the interior. Some poorly documented accounts exist of Spanish or French mining gold in North Georgia between 1560 and 1690, but they are based on supposition and on rumors passed on by Indians. In summing up known sources, W.S. Yeates observed: "Many of these accounts and traditions seem to be quite plausible. Nevertheless, it is hardly probable that the Spaniards would have abandoned mines which were afterwards found to be quite profitable, as those in North Georgia."


North Carolina gold rush

Hernando de Soto led an expedition in 1540, and "came across a young native who showed the Spaniards how gold was mined, melted, and refined by his people." Ozley Bird Saunook, a former
Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
chief, claimed "his people knew of gold in the area as early as the sixteenth century when de Soto passed through the region."Williams, David, 1993, The Georgia Gold Rush: Twenty-Niners, Cherokees, and Gold Fever, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, In 1799, gold was discovered in
Cabarrus County, North Carolina Cabarrus County ( )
, from the North Carolina Collection's website at the
Little Meadow Creek, on his father's farm. Conrad had the stone identified in Fayetteville, North Carolina, three years later. By 1804, this Carolina Gold Rush resulted in placer mining, the discovery of a gold-rich
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...
vein Veins are blood vessels in humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenat ...
by Mathias Barringer along Long Creek in
Stanly County, North Carolina Stanly County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 62,504. Its county seat is Albemarle. Stanly County comprises the Albemarle, NC Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included i ...
. The gold belt was extended north into Virginia, and south into South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.


1828 Georgia discovery

No one knows which version of the original find is accurate: *Some anecdotes have either Frank Logan or his slave making the find in
White County, Georgia White County is a county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,003. The county seat is Cleveland. The county was created on December 22, 1857, formerly a part of Habers ...
, in
Dukes Creek Dukes Creek is the creek in White County, Georgia, on which gold was found in 1828. The discovery of gold in White County and neighboring Lumpkin County led to the Georgia Gold Rush. The creek is approximately long. file geodatabase (GDB) at ftp: ...
. *Another version of the White County find has John Witherood (or Witherow/Withrow) finding a three-ounce nugget along Dukes Creek. *Still another version was that the North Carolina prospector Jesse Hogan found gold near
Dahlonega, Georgia The city of Dahlonega () is the county seat of Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,242, and in 2018 the population was estimated to be 6,884. Dahlonega is located at the north end of ...
, at Ward's Creek. *There are some accounts that attest an Indigenous man found the first gold nugget at Chestatee Rive in 1815. *Thomas Bowen supposedly found gold in the roots of a storm-blown tree along Duke's Creek. *Benjamin Parks found gold on his birthday in 1828 while walking along a deer path, and subsequently he and his business partner, Joel Stephens, leased the site from Reverend O'Barr. However, these stories have no contemporary documents to support their validity.


Gold rush

No matter who made the gold discovery in 1828, the gold rush started in 1829 in Lumpkin County and began spreading rapidly. One of the first public accounts was on August 1, 1829, when the ''Georgia Journal'' (a Milledgeville newspaper), ran the following notice.
GOLD.—A gentleman of the first respectability in
Habersham county Habersham County is a County (United States), county located in the Northeast Georgia, northeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the population was 43,041. The county s ...
, writes us thus under date of 22d July: "Two gold mines have just been discovered in this county, and preparations are making to bring these hidden treasures of the earth to use." So it appears that what we long anticipated has come to pass at last, namely, that the gold region of North and South Carolina, would be found to extend into Georgia.
The ''Macon Telegraph'' reported that in "the winter of 1829 and 30, when the precious metals having been discovered in great abundance upon our Cherokee soil, great numbers of people from Georgia and other States rushed to the Territory in search of its treasures." Gold was discovered in Carroll County, Georgia, in 1830. Although much of the land on which the gold was found was under the control of the
Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
, mining operations quickly sprang up in Lumpkin,
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,
Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...
, and
Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
counties in the "Great Intrusion". In the early stages of the gold rush, the majority of the mining was placer mining. By 1830, ''Nile's Register'' estimated that there were 4,000 miners working on Yahoola Creek alone, and more than 300 ounces (8.5 kg) of gold per day were being produced in an area from north of Blairsville to the southeast corner of Cherokee County. The
Philadelphia Mint The Philadelphia Mint in Philadelphia was created from the need to establish a national identity and the needs of commerce in the United States. This led the Founding Fathers of the United States to make an establishment of a continental national ...
received $212,000 in gold from Georgia in 1830. Other estimates were that in 1831 there were 6,000 to 10,000 miners between the
Chestatee River The Chestatee River (variant spellings Chestatie, Chestetee, Chostatee, Chosteta, Chestotee; none in modern use) is a file geodatabase (GDB) at ftp://rockyftp.cr.usgs.gov/vdelivery/Datasets/Staged/Hydro/FileGDB101/ river in the Appalachian Mountain ...
and the Etowah River.
Boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although ...
s, including Auraria and
Dahlonega The city of Dahlonega () is the county seat of Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,242, and in 2018 the population was estimated to be 6,884. Dahlonega is located at the north end of ...
, began to appear. Dahlonega was said to have supported 15,000 miners at the height of the gold rush. During this rapid influx of prospectors and settlers, tensions with the Cherokee increased. Before long, gold mines appeared in most counties in the North Georgia mountains, including Georgia's northeasternmost county,
Rabun ''Rabun'' is a 2003 Malaysian drama film directed by Yasmin Ahmad. It tells a story about a free-spirited older couple, Pak Atan and Mak Inom who decide to spend more time in the country after getting tired of city life. But they find that life ...
. The culmination of tensions between the Cherokee and various states, including Georgia, led to the
forced migration Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...
of Native Americans, later known as the
Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, ...
. President
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
authorized the
Indian Removal Act The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for ...
in 1830, which would allow a takeover of the gold mining areas among other places. The Cherokee Nation turned to the federal court system to avoid being forced off their ancestral lands. The Supreme Court first ruled in favor of the State of Georgia in the 1831 case
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia ''Cherokee Nation v. Georgia'', 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1 (1831), was a United States Supreme Court case. The Cherokee Nation sought a federal injunction against laws passed by the U.S. state of Georgia depriving them of rights within its boundaries, but ...
, but the following year, in Worcester v. Georgia reversed this decision to recognize the Cherokee as a sovereign nation. Jackson proceeded with removal of remaining Cherokee from the North Georgia gold fields. The indigenous were not the only people upset by the gold rush into northern Georgia. Enslaved people who either already lived in the state or were trafficked in were made to first dig out and establish tunnels and mine shafts necessary for large scale mining operations, and then worked in the mines producing gold ore. Enslaved women would operate water mills in order to process gold ore and enslaved people worked the Etowah River gold veins. The mines in the south "...extended along the banks of the Etowah River, and employed a mixed-race workforce of enslaved miners and a transient pool of hired white laborers." The Philadelphia Mint received more than half a million dollars in gold from Georgia in 1832. The state of Georgia held the
Gold Lottery of 1832 The Gold Lottery of 1832 was the seventh lottery of the Georgia Land Lotteries, a lottery system used by the State of Georgia between the years 1805 and 1833 to redistribute stolen Cherokee land. It was authorized by the Georgia General Assembly ...
and awarded land, which had been owned by the Cherokee, to the winners in 40-acre (16 ha) tracts. The Philadelphia Mint received $1,098,900 in gold from Georgia between 1830 and 1837. In 1838, the
Dahlonega Mint The Dahlonega Mint was a former branch of the United States Mint built during the Georgia Gold Rush to help the miners get their gold assayed and minted, without having to travel to the Philadelphia Mint. It was located at (34°31.8′N 83°59.2 ...
was established by
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, as a
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of the
United States Mint The United States Mint is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bullion. It does not produce paper money; tha ...
. This was a testimony to the amount of gold being produced in Georgia. The establishment of the Dahlonega Mint seemed to validate the state's actions in the early part of the century to seize Cherokee lands. Besides panning and other gold-washing machines, efforts shifted to working the lode deposits, or gold-bearing quartz vein mining. This involved digging shafts and tunnels, from three to seven square feet in size, braced by timbers due to the fissures in the rock and the danger of collapse. Most mines stayed above the water table, being no more than thirty feet deep, such as the Allatoona Mine in Bartow County. The deepest was the Loud Mine, in White County, at one hundred and thirty feet. Large stamp mills appeared in 1833, at the Columbia Mine in McDuffie County. These reduced the ore to fine sand for additional panning, or for separation via mercury amalgamation. Besides the Calhoun Mine, other major gold mines included the Sixes, Logan, Elrod, Battle Branch, Pigeon Roost, Turkey Hill, Free Jim, Holt, Loud, Cleveland, Gordon, Horshaw, Lumsden, and Richardson. Nevertheless, by the 1840s gold mining saw a sharp decline, as the gold began to "play out".


Aftermath

When news of the California Gold Rush reached Georgia, many miners moved west in search of more gold; the assayer of the
Dahlonega Mint The Dahlonega Mint was a former branch of the United States Mint built during the Georgia Gold Rush to help the miners get their gold assayed and minted, without having to travel to the Philadelphia Mint. It was located at (34°31.8′N 83°59.2 ...
, M. F. Stephenson, tried to convince them to stay. He declared from the Dahlonega courthouse steps to a crowd of miners, "Why go to California? In that ridge lies more gold than man ever dreamt of. There's millions in it." Yet, despite the departure of many miners, the mines in the Georgia Gold Belt continued to produce gold for years. Hydraulic mining and blast mining renewed interest in the 1850s. There were some 500 mines in 37 different counties. The
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
brought most operations to a halt, but a few operations continued after the war, and several mines were reworked in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. It is estimated that Georgia produced about 870,000 troy ounces (24,000 kg) of gold between 1828 and the mid-20th century, when commercial gold production ceased. Before they were expelled, the
Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
gained enough gold-mining experience to participate in later gold rushes in California in 1849 and
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
in 1859. Cherokee gold miners gave the name to the town of
Cherokee, California Cherokee is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Butte County, California. It is an area inhabited by Maidu Indians prior to the gold rush, but that takes its name from a band of Cherokee prospectors who perfected a mining c ...
, as well as to a number of other geographic features in that state's gold-mining region. Experienced gold miners from Georgia played key roles in the beginning of gold mining in Colorado. Georgia miners Lewis and Samuel Ralston, along with some displaced Georgia Cherokee, noticed placer gold near the present site of
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, on their way to the Sierra Nevada gold fields in 1850. They returned east in 1857, having failed to strike it rich; they remembered the gold just east of the
Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
. William Greeneberry Russell led a party of Cherokee and Georgia gold miners back to Colorado in 1858, and they began placer mining along the
South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/ Mountain West. It ...
in present-day Denver. Three Auraria Georgians, W. Green, Levi J., and J. Oliver Russell, founded Auraria, Colorado, named after the gold-mining town in Georgia. Auraria merged with Denver in 1860, but the neighborhood is still known as Auraria. The town of
Golden, Colorado Golden is a home rule city that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,399 at the 2020 United States Census. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountai ...
, is named after Georgia miner Thomas L. Golden. Another Georgia gold miner, John H. Gregory, discovered the first lode gold in Colorado in 1859. In 1864, four prospectors known as "the Georgians" found one of the early gold placers in
Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
, at Last Chance Gulch. The site became the state capital of Helena. The migration of people down into the South shifted the economy in Georgia, much like it did in California. There were the few who 'made it rich', and that was a boon for the communities, but there was also a surge of people with different skills and backgrounds to further build a more functional and rounded community. However, because of the amount of miners looking to make it big in the industry, whatever fortunes that were made were marginally decreased when they had to be dispersed among more and more miners on the work force. The Georgia Gold Rush was useful for its additions to the further development in the South, namely in pushing industrialization. This, however, also meant that it disturbed what established communities and economies already existed, both for indigenous people and for those that had already settled there. It led to destruction of landscapes and geography due to procedures necessary for mining: cutting down forests, stripped away streams, creating dams to block water flow, and settling previously untouched areas. As seen with the California Gold Rush, there was also an uptick in criminal rates, including homicide. This was largely due to the opportunity to commit crime because of a lack of developed and consistent punishments for crime in mining communities, made largely of miners. The rise in crime in Georgia has also been atrributed to an increase of different minorities settling in the South. This conflict was a consequence of different movtivations, including class, race, and claims to land. This has been said to last through the ages and could be a cause of the race disparity in the South that persists today. * Christopher Bechtler * Crisson Mine * Consolidated Mine


References


Further reading


''North Georgia’s Gold Rush,'' About North Georgia

''Gold Rush,'' The New Georgia Encyclopedia

Mineral Resources of the Blue Ridge & Piedmont
* ttp://www.goldrushgallery.com/dahlmint/c_history_1.html ''The Georgia Gold Rush,'' Gold Rush Gallerybr>''Georgia Gold Mines, Etc.,'' Goldmaps.com
*"''Gold-Mining in Georgia''." Harper's New Monthly Magazine 59, Issue 352 (September 1879): 517–519. Available her


External links


An Act to authorize Governor George R. Gilmer to take possession of gold, silver and other mines in Cherokee Country
2 December 1830. From the collection of th
Georgia Archives

"Thar's gold in them thar hills": Gold and Gold Mining in Georgia, 1830s-1940s
from the
Digital Library of Georgia The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is an online, public collection of documents and media about the history and culture of the state of Georgia, United States. The collection includes more than a million digitized objects from more than 200 Georg ...

Cherokee County Gold
historical marker {{Financial bubbles American gold rushes 1829 in the United States History of Georgia (U.S. state) Cherokee County, Georgia Habersham County, Georgia Lumpkin County, Georgia Rabun County, Georgia Union County, Georgia White County, Georgia