Crisson Mine was a

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

mine in

Lumpkin County, Georgia Lumpkin County is a County (United States), county in the Northeast Georgia, Northeast region of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 33,488. Its county seat is D ...

USA The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

, located just east of

Dahlonega 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 Georgia h ...

. Like many mines in the area, the property probably started as a

placer mine Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit mining or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment. Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly ...

during the

Georgia Gold Rush The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States 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, ...

. Once the placer deposits had been exhausted, an

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ...

gold mine was established in 1847 and commercial operations continued until the early 1980s. A small

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of Mill (grinding), mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than Mill (grinding), grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking materia ...

was also established here. Much of the gold used for the gold leaf dome of the

Georgia State Capitol The Georgia State Capitol is an architecturally and historically significant building in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The building has been named a National Historic Landmark which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As t ...

was mined at this mine, which was among the most productive mines in the

Georgia Gold Belt The largest quantities of gold found in the eastern United States were found in the Georgia Gold Belt, extending from eastern Alabama to Rabun County, Georgia, Rabun County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The biggest concentration of gold was fo ...

. The mine is located just north of the site of the Consolidated Mine, which is itself north of the Calhoun Mine. In 1969, the owners of Crisson Mine opened to the public to allow tourists to pan for gold. The ore sold for panning is still crushed by the stamp mill, which is now well over 100 years old. It is likely that panning the ore provided at the mine will yield small amounts of gold (flakes, specks, small nuggets).

External links

Crisson Mine WebsiteCrisson Mine on TopoQuest.com"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 Georgi ...

Gold mines in Georgia Mines in Lumpkin County, Georgia Surface mines in the United States Tourist attractions in Lumpkin County, Georgia Stamp mills {{US-mine-stub