William L. Stuart

author of The Gemstone Chronicles Series

gold

Volcanoes – In Georgia?!?! Yes! Pigeon Mountain!! (Or not)…

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After receiving a number of comments about this post (most of them gently telling me that my information was incorrect), I did additional research about volcanoes in Georgia. Sadly, the comments are correct. Pigeon Mountain isn’t a dormant volcano. In fact, based on the more extensive research I did, the geology just doesn’t work.

Most of the rock in the area is sandstone or limestone and doesn’t lend itself to volcanic activity. Though what is now Georgia had volcanic activity hundreds of millions of years ago, Pigeon Mountain wasn’t part of it. So, please forgive my error and thanks for all the corrections submitted to me!

Volcanoes – in Georgia???

Volcanoes

When you think of volcanoes in the US, where do you think of them? Hawaii is a good bet, since there are 3 active volcanoes in the state. Maunaloa last erupted in 1984, but Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983. In addition, Loihi is still underwater, but erupting.

How about Alaska? Lots of volcanic activity up there. Or maybe the Pacific Northwest? Mount St. Helen, Mount Shasta, Mount Rainier all come to mind. There are even a few in California that are monitored by the USGS. And, we all know about Yellowstone and the supervolcano lurking beneath the surface.

But, have you ever thought about volcanoes in Georgia? Believe it or not, Pigeon Mountain in Northwest Georgia is a dormant volcano that last erupted in 1857. Besides Pigeon Mountain itself, in the Pigeon Mountain Volcanic Range there are 5 extinct volcanoes and 1 collapsed caldera. As you can see, this isn’t an impressive volcano.

Caves:

Located in Walker County Georgia near Lafayette, Pigeon Mountain features two caves. One of them, Ellison’s Cave is the 12th deepest cave in the US and reaches a depth of 1063 feet. According to Wikipedia, it a a technically difficult cave to explore and beginners are severely urged not to enter the cave.

Volcanoes Ellison's Cave

The second cave, Petty John’s Cave, is a wild cave – not commercialized. As Wikipedia tells us, this is a cave much more suited to beginners. Still the basics of caving (spelunking) should be observed.

Between the two caves, explorers have mapped more than 20 miles of passages. It might be a cool trip for experienced cavers to experience. Since I’m not, I doubt I’ll be going in the caves.

So, what can you expect to find when exploring near dormant or extinct volcanoes? Well, for Pigeon Mountain, iron (usually in the form of hematite). No diamonds or any other precious gemstones are listed in the area, but the ghost town of Estelle is on Pigeon Mountain. Estelle was a iron mining town, so maybe there is a bit of iron left to find! And hematite tumbles into a beautiful silver stone.

Much like the abundance of gemstones in the North Georgia Mountains, I had no idea volcanoes had ever played a part in Georgia’s history. I’ll keep researching and let you know what I discover. And who knows, maybe what I find will become part of my next book, just as gemstones played a major role in The Gemstone Chronicles!

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What do you think? Did you know about the volcanoes that dot the North Georgia Mountains? Leave me a comment and let me know. And, so you don’t miss a post, subscribe to the blog. If you want to connect with me on the socials, I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Pinterest.

Gem Hunting in the Southeast US – Where Will I Go??

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Y’all know about my gem hunting hobby and how the gemstones are such an integral part of my fantasy adventure series The Gemstone Chronicles. You also know about my favorite gemstone hunting spot in the North Georgia Mountains. You might have even read about my trip to the Hogg Mountain Mine near LaGrange, GA or the trip to Hiddenite, NC. I hope the posts inspired you to go out on your own gem hunting excursions (or at least read and review my books)! Living in the Southeast, I decided to find new places fairly close to home and consider them for a visit, or share them with y’all in case you want to make a trip! To be fair, I didn’t look at other Southeast US states likes Florida, and Mississippi and Arkansas are a bit far for me (at least for a day trip).

Today, though, I want to give you an overview of places that I have researched on the Internet and where I might have to go for a visit over the next few months. Let’s start right here in Georgia, where I found this emerald and my brother John found the peridot that I had cut and set for a birthday present for the lovely and adorable Lana!

Southeast Lana's-Emerald-Web

Southeast Lana's-Peridot-Ring-Web

North Georgia Mountains:

The North Georgia Mountains have many places to hunt for gemstones (and gold, if you are so inclined).

  • Graves Mountain (Lincoln County, Georgia): According to GeorgiaEnclcyopedia.org, Graves Mountain is a unique geological area filled with some of the finest specimens of kyanite, pyrite, pyrophyllite, rutile, and lazulite. They occasionally open the site to rockhounds, and I intend to be at the next dig!
  • Consolidated Gold Mine (Dahlonega, Georgia): A great place to visit to get an idea of what it was like to dig for gold underground. You can tour the mine and will end up about 140 feet underground. At the end of the tour, you can pan for gold and screen for gems.
  • Crisson Gold Mine (Dahlonega, Georgia): Another gold mine in Dahlonega, you can pan for gold here, too. If you want to, you can sign up to be a member of the Weekend Gold Miners at Crisson Gold Mine and gain access to the leased lands operated by the Weekend Gold Miners and prospect to your heart’s content!

South Carolina:

  • Diamond Hill Mine (Antreville, SC): The website for the Diamond Hill Mine says you can find quartz, amethyst (though rare), and other gemstones. For me, it would be about a 2 hour drive. Hours are 9-5 and no digging after dark. The website has some pictures of finds at the site and they look pretty good. I think I can foresee a road trip!

North Carolina:

I have to say that North Carolina offers many opportunities for gemstone exploration. I will only list a few, but do your own research and find many more!

  • Mason’s Ruby and Sapphire Mine (Franklin, NC): This mine sounds like my kind of place. While they do offer salted buckets, they also offer the opportunity to dig your own dirt and keep what you find. I think this is a place for me! They are open from March 1 – December 1 and a day of digging will cost $30. This is about a 2 hour drive for me, so easily doable for a day trip.
  • Cherokee Ruby Mine (Franklin, NC): Another mine that is now offering dig your own dirt option. This one comes with a little bit of a limitation: for the dig your own option, you can fill 6 buckets for $30 and you can fill 4 additional for $10 more. They do offer a flume to wash off the stones, but the fee seems a bit high for my tastes. The hours are 9 am – 4 pm Monday through Saturday and 10-5 on Sunday. The mine is open May 1 – October 31. The mine is also cash only.

Tennessee:

Other than copper mines around Ducktown and barite mines in other areas, I couldn’t find much about gem mines in Tennessee. Any of you Tennessee readers who want to give us some ideas, it would be greatly appreciated!

Alabama:

Similar to Tennessee, I couldn’t find a lot about gem mines in Alabama, though I did fond some references to gold prospecting. As with the Tennessee folks, any hints you Alabama readers could give us would be appreciated!

For states outside the Southeast, please feel free to give us ideas about gem hunting opportunities near you. I can always try to plan a trip!

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Reactor Shutdown – Recruiting Duty (My Navy Career Ends)

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In two previous posts, I chronicled my path from boot camp through Navy Nuclear Power School, and then from graduation from prototype to my time spent aboard USS Sandlance (SSN660). Today’s post will be the final installment of this series and will follow my path from Sandlance to recruiting duty and the end of my Navy career. This is my picture from my first day on recruiting duty at NRD Atlanta!

Recruiting Duty September 1989
Recruiting Duty NRD Atlanta

Recruiting Duty:

Why go to recruiting duty after spending 6 years going through nuclear power training and qualifying aboard a submarine? It was a little strange, I guess, but I had been aboard Sandlance from October 1985 – August 1989. In May 1988, Sandlance went into the shipyards in Portsmouth, NH, leaving Charleston, SC.

I married the lovely and adorable Lana in July 1988 and moved her and my daughter Laura to Dover, NH. We spent a year there, but it was time to move on to something else. Lana and I wanted to head back to the warmer world of the South, and recruiting duty seemed like a good fit. I requested the transfer and it was granted! Below is my recommendation from my CO.

Recruiting Duty Recommendation

Recruiting School:

The first part of recruiting duty consisted off 5 weeks of training in Orlando. The coursework was not difficult – especially compared to the previous regimen I experienced in Orlando, but it was challenging in its own way. One of the more awkward training sequences was making cold calls. Anyone who has been in most any kind of sales knows about cold calling. Basically, you have a list of phone numbers and a script and you call someone at random and try to convince them to buy your product. Memorizing the script was pretty easy, but trying to stay on script with people who didn’t want to talk to you was difficult. It did help to develop a thick skin, which was a necessary trait for a recruiter, and one that I still use today in my role as a global supply chain manager.

The 5 weeks flew by and I graduated and was selected as “Most Likely To Succeed” by my classmates. I was surprised and humbled by the honor! Here is my award!

Recruiting Duty Most Likely to Succeed

NRS Americus, GA:

My duty station was Naval Recruiting District Atlanta and my office the Naval Recruiting Station Americus. For those who don’t know where Americus is, it is in South Georgia about 30 miles from Albany and about 10 miles from Plains, GA (home of former President Jimmy Carter). If you have ever gone down I 75 and turned at exit 101 in Cordele, you were at the eastern edge of my recruiting territory. The western edge was at the Alabama line in Stewart County. I had 9 high schools to visit monthly, so I logged a huge amount of windshield time!! One thing about recruiting duty is the awards you get. The recruiting world is very keen on recognition! I added a few pictures of awards I received further down in the post and pictures of my recruiting badge (rookie cookie and with gold star) and business card.

Recruiting Duty Rookie Cookie
Recruiting Badge Rookie Cookie
Recruiting Duty Gold Wreath
Recruiting badge with 6 gold wreaths

Reccruiting Duty Business Card

Interestingly enough, recruiting duty helped me decide on my college major. Georgia Southwestern State University is located in Americus, and happened to be right on my way home. It seemed only natural to  go to school there and, given that recruiting is part of the Human Resources function in most places, HR Management became my major. That is probably about as diametrically opposite to nuclear power as one can get!

A day in the life:

What did I do while on recruiting duty? Besides logging the windshield time, I did my high school visits, and made the required cold calls. I filled out tons of paperwork and ran waivers on kids that needed them. Mostly, I tried to present an accurate picture of what the Navy was all about. I know the reputation that recruiters have for telling potential recruits whatever was necessary to get them to sign on the dotted line, but I didn’t do that (as every recruiter in the world will tell you). Seriously, I didn’t!

My recruits:

Over the 3 and a half years of recruiting duty, of all the people I sent to boot camp and only 2 of them didn’t make it through. One broke an ankle and the other caught pneumonia. Of all of the kids I recruited only 3 didn’t go to boot camp, so I had a pretty good track record. Below is one of my Delayed Entry Program (DEP) Management Awards.

Recruiting Duty DEP Mgt Award
DEP Management Award

For you submarine sailors out there, you know the cup, but we had a couple of cups, too!

Recruiting Duty Cup 1

I have to recount one story, though. During a visit to one of my favorite high schools, I set up my table at lunch to talk to kids while they were in the cafeteria. Across from me was a Marine Gunny Sergeant, all decked out in his dress blues. I was wearing my normal winter blues, so I was definitely out dressed.

Anyway, this kid asked the gunny what all his ribbons meant and all was fine until the gunny pointed to his sea service ribbon (with 3 stars) and told the kid it was some kind of Marine Corps ribbon. I couldn’t take it and told the gunny to tell the kid the truth. The gunny gave me a cold stare, but the kid noticed that I had the ribbon, too (with no stars). He asked me what it was and I told him. The kid got mad because the Marine was lying to him. The Marine was mad at me because he thought he lost a recruit, and I just smiled! I think the kid eventually went into the Air Force.

My recruiting style:

That was the way I conducted my time as a recruiter. I would tell the kids that, based on their ASVAB scores, they qualified for certain jobs, although I couldn’t guarantee that job. I drove most of them to Atlanta, and waited while they went through physicals and job classification. Afterwards, I drove them home, encouraged them to tell their friends about me and the Navy, and monitored them until they departed for boot camp. Many of my recruits came back to work for me for a week after boot camp and enthusiastically spoke to former classmates and friends about their Navy experiences.

While on recruiting duty, I finished my degree (which the Navy mostly paid for), and was a walking poster child for getting an education while serving on active duty. Since school was on the way home, I often wore my uniform to class. That generated a lot of leads and conversations – especially when people found out that I served aboard submarines! I did nuclear power lectures for math and science classes. Once I had to speak extemporaneously for an hour during a school club day! Like I said, while not as academically challenging as nuke school, recruiting duty taught me a lot. I still use the presentation skills in my job today.

The end of my Navy career:

I wanted to go back to sea after recruiting duty and planned to go to King’s Bay, GA on a missile boat. However, when I called my detailer, he told me I could go to Bremerton, WA or Pearl Harbor, HI. I told him that he forgot option 3….see ya! I had recently graduated with my degree in HR. My wife was in graduate school and my daughter a junior in high school. Uprooting them was out of the question. August 23, 1993,  a little over 10 years from my date of enlistment, I left the Navy with an honorable discharge. I headed out into the civilian world, my Navy career at an end.

Post Navy:

I never worked in HR after I got my degree. I’ve spent most of my post-Navy career working in the human and animal pharmaceutical business in supply chain. I completed a master’s degree in Management and have had a great life. I’m happily married to my amazing wife, Lana. I have an amazing daughter, and two incredible grandchildren. I’ve written four books (The Gemstone Chronicles series). I’m starting my fifth book. I learned to hunt for gemstones, and prospect for gold. I generally enjoy my life!

What might have been:

I do occasionally wonder what would have happened had I stayed in the Navy. If I had, I probably would have applied for OCS, and who knows where that may have led? I miss the guys from the boat (not the boat so much), and stay connected with quite a few of them. All told, my Navy career was a formative time and it remains firmly entrenched in everything I do!

Did any of you readers spend time as a recruiter? If so, leave me a comment and let me know how your experience was. If you served in any branch of military, did your recruiter tell you the truth? Did you know what to expect when you enlisted? I’m always interested to hear stories about recruiting duty or tales of the wrong and right actions of recruiters.

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Calhoun Mine – One of Georgia’s Richest Gold Mines

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In a couple of earlier posts, I mentioned the Georgia Gold Rush and named a few of the better known gold mines. Three of the more well-known gold mines were the Loud Mine, the Consolidated Mine, and the topic of this post, the Calhoun Mine.

Calhoun Mine:

According to Wikipedia, the land the Calhoun Mine is located on 239 acres originally owned by Robert Ober. After a couple of intermediary sales, John C. Calhoun, South Carolina senator and the 7th Vice President of the United States, purchased the land. Below is John C.’s picture and he is an intense looking kind of guy!

Calhoun Mine John C Calhoun

Calhoun purchased the land for $6000 dollars (approximately $167,000 in today’s dollars).  He began working the mine and it yielded much gold. Calhoun sent his son-in-law, Thomas Clemson, to run the mine. The deposit was rich and, according to an 1856 letter from Thomas Clemson to his brother-in-law, was still yielding significant quantities 30 year after the initial discovery.  Part of the money used to found Clemson University came from the Calhoun Mine and specimens from the mine are on display in the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.

Calhoun Mine Thomas Clemson
Thomas Clemson

The mine closes:

The Calhoun Mine passed from the Calhoun family in 1879 and, in 1939, a vein was found by Graham Dugas – one of the more colorful characters in Dahlonega’s Gold Rush history. The vein played out and the mine ceased operations. It is now privately owned and listed on the National Register of Historical Places and became a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

Calhoun Mine Historical Marker
Calhoun Gold Mine Historical Marker

I plan on taking a drive up to the area of the Calhoun Mine very soon and taking some pictures. If I can find out who owns the land now, I’ll see if they will let me go on the property and take a look around! It would be awesome to see where the gold came out of the ground!

In my books, The Gemstone Chronicles, Beebop owned land in the North Georgia Mountains. His land included an old mine and he prospected more for gemstones than gold, but who knows, maybe Beebop was on to something. Maybe there still is gold in those hills!! John C Calhoun certainly found some at his mine!

Connect with me:

Are there any gold mines where you live? If so, let me know about them! As always, feedback and shares are welcome. You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. I enjoy meeting new friends!

The 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery and The Trail of Tears

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I mentioned in a previous post that gold was discovered in 1828 in the North Georgia Mountains. Miners swarmed into the mountains and encroached on the lands of the Cherokee.In my books, The Gemstone Chronicles series, I referenced the gold rush, the displacement of the Cherokee, and one of the legends regarding the origin of staurolite Fairy Crosses – the Trail of Tears. In this post, I will discuss how the 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery impacted the Cherokee in particular, North Georgia in general, and led to the infamous Trail of Tears.

The capital of the Cherokee Nation was at New Echota, near present day Calhoun, Georgia. Lana and I took a Saturday and visited New Echota to learn more about the Cherokee, the gold rush, and the ultimate displacement of the Cherokee. We learned a lot during our short time at New Echota, including the Cherokee form of government, the way the Cherokee lived in the early 1800’s, and some of the famous Cherokee people.

1832 Georgia Gold Lottery:

As I mentioned above, the 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery was part of a larger land lottery in the state. The lottery encompassed the lands of the Cherokee as show in the map below.

1832 Gold Lottery Cherokee Land

The lands on the right hand side of the map are the lands that held most of the gold. According to the display at New Echota, about 85,000 people competed for about 18,000 land lots and 133,000 people competed for the 35,000 gold lots in the lottery. The land lots were 160 acre tracts and the gold lots were 40 acre plots.

A big question in my mind was how did the lottery come about? it turns out that Georgia had a history of doing land lotteries. According to Wikipedia, the Georgia lotteries began in 1805 and a succession of lotteries followed in 1807, 1820, 1821, and 1827. By 1832, the Cherokee were living on an area in the northeast part of the state and the Creek had ceded all of their lands in the state.

When gold was discovered in 1828 in Lumpkin County (Dahlonega), white settlers headed to the mountains to stake their claims. It didn’t matter that the land belonged to the Cherokee. In fact, the State of Georgia passed laws that forbade the Cherokee from mining gold on their own land!

Court Cases:

The Cherokee didn’t just give up the lands, though. Since they considered themselves a sovereign nation within the United States, the Cherokee viewed the land lottery as illegal. The Cherokee sued and the case reached the US Supreme Court. More on that coming up.

A second case involving the Cherokee reached the Supreme Court, too. This case involved a law Georgia passed that required non-Native Americans have a license, issued by the state, to be present on Native American lands. When Samuel Worcester refused to get a license, Georgia arrested him and put him in prison. Mr. Worcester had arrived in New Echota in 1825 to convert the Cherokee to Christianity and teach them English. He also served as the postmaster and, with Elias Boudinot, established the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper among the Native Americans.

1832 Gold Lottery Samuel Worcester House

Now, back to the court cases. In the first case, Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court found in favor of Worcester. According to Wikipedia, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the federal government had an exclusive relationship with the Cherokee Nation and recognized the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty. above state laws. Worcester was pardoned, but moved to Indian Territory in 1836.

The other case, Cherokee Nation v Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee was not a foreign nation (later reversed in Worcester v. Georgia) but had a relationship similar to a “ward to its guardian.” Regardless of the ruling, the state and President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the rulings and moved forward with the land lottery. Below is a land deed from the lottery signed by William Lumpkin, Governor of Georgia.

1832 Gold Lottery Land Deed

The Land Lottery:

The land lottery was the beginning of the end of the Cherokee in Georgia. More settlers streamed into Georgia and, with the Georgia Guard enforcing the laws, there wasn’t many avenues of recourse for the Cherokee. Finally, in 1833, the Cherokee began negotiations with the federal government for a removal treaty. The Cherokee were split into two factions. The Treaty Party, led by Elias Boudinot (who worked with Samuel Worcester on the Cherokee Phoenix), Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Charles Vann advocated for the removal treaty. The National Party, led by John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation opposed the treaty the federal government offered.

In December 1835, the negotiations were held in New Echota and  a treaty was signed. The treaty allowed for the payment of $5,000,000 for all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River, equal land in the Indian Territory, $500,000 for education, and full compensation for the lands left behind. One other clause was that any Cherokee that wished to do so could remain in the states in which they resided and become citizens. With that last clause included, the committee reported back to the council, and the council unanimously approved the treaty. The 20 members of the committee signed the treaty and it made its way back to Washington. President Andrew Jackson struck the last clause from the treaty.

The Trail of Tears:

When the National Party learned of the treaty, they protested that they had not ratified the treaty and it was, therefore, illegal. John Ross presented to the US Senate a petition signed by 16,000 Cherokee asking that the treaty not be ratified. However, in 1836, by one vote, the treaty was ratified and President Martin Van Buren directed General Winfield Scott to enforce the removal of the Cherokee. 1838 saw more than 16,000 Cherokee moved from their land. Multiple routes moved the Cherokee over land and river. Below is a map of the infamous Trail of Tears.

1832 Gold Lottery Trail of Tears

During the forced removal, more than 4,000 Cherokee perished. The Cherokee finally arrived in their new lands, but old tensions still festered. In 1839, members of the National Party assassinated Elias Boudinot, Major Ridge, and John Ridge. They also attacked Stand Watie, but the attempt to kill him failed.

The aftermath of the assassinations was a civil war within the Cherokee Nation. In 1846, the federal government negotiated a when a tenuous peace treaty. The bitterness remained and may have contributed to the split within the Cherokee during the American Civil War. The Treaty Party faction (and most of the Cherokee Nation) sided with the Confederacy. John Ross and his supporters sided with the Union. With the Union victory in the Civil War, John Ross became the recognized Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Final thoughts:

This post cannot capture the events and politics that led to the removal of the Cherokee from Georgia. The land lottery system set up in Georgia beginning in 1805 might be the starting point. So many other factors and circumstances added nuances and I think it overly simplifies a complex issue.

What are your thoughts about the plight of the Cherokee and the impact of the 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery? Let me a comment and let me know. As always, feedback and shares are welcome!

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Georgia Gold Mines -There’s Gold in Them There Hills!

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The California Gold Rush and the legendary Miner 49ers. We all learned about that gold rush in school. But, did you know that before gold was found in California, there was a gold rush in North Georgia? It’s true! There were many Georgia gold mines! Gold was discovered around Dahlonega in 1828, twenty years before gold was found at Sutter’s Mill.

Georgia Gold Mines Dahlonega Mint
Dahlonega Mint

At the height the of the gold rush, there were over 500 gold mines operating in 37 counties in North Georgia. Boom towns sprang up, miners streamed into the state, and many people found riches. And gold flowed out of the mines – so much so that a mint was opened 1838 in Dahlonega to process the gold into coins. Wikipedia says it’s estimated that from 1828 through the mid-2oth century (when commercial gold mining in Georgia stopped) 870,000 troy ounces of gold were mined. At today’s price of $1218/ounce, that is over $1 billion!!

The Gold Lottery of 1832:

In 1832, the state of Georgia held a Gold lottery, selling 40 acre lots across North Georgia – land that belonged to the Cherokee. Despite protests from the Cherokee, the lottery winners swarmed into the lands and settled. The Cherokee were soon to be forcibly relocated along the infamous Trial of Tears. In The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian, Aidan finds some staurolite fairy crosses. One of the legends regarding the staurolite fairy crosses is that they are the result of the tears the Cherokee shed as they were forced from their home in the mountains.

Georgia Gold Mines Staurolite Fairy Cross
Staurolite Fairy Cross

I plan a future post of the Gold Lottery of 1832 and the Trail of Tears, so I won’t go deeper into that subject here.

Notable Figures in the Georgia Gold Rush:

There were some notable figures with ties to the Georgia Gold Rush. John C. Calhoun, Senator and the 7th Vice President of the United States, owned the Calhoun Mine. The Calhoun Mine produced a lot of gold during its time, as did the Loud Mine and the Consolidated Mine. The Calhoun Mine was managed for a time by Thomas Clemson, the founder of Clemson University.

Much of the gold found during the beginning of the gold rush was placer gold. Placer gold is gold that eroded away from the vein and deposited in stream beds, at the mouths of rivers, and other such places. Gravity wins with gold, as it is about 19 times heavier than water, so it won’t travel far from the source. By some estimates, gold will only travel about 1500 feet from the source. After the easily found gold was exhausted, miners invaded the creeks, streams, and rivers to dig into the beds and pan for gold. Below is a gold nugget found in the Dahlonega area.

Georgia Gold Mines Gold Nuggest
Dahlonega gold nugget

According to the Consolidated Gold Mine website, in 1845, John Hand developed a hydraulic mining method to dislodge material from the hillsides. This method meant that water cannons would point at a hillside and blast away the mountain and send the mud and rocks down the hillside and into sluices positioned below. Another method was to find the gold-bearing quartz (quartz is plentiful in Georgia), run the quartz through a stamp mill, crush the rock, and extract the gold. If you are lucky enough to be able to prospect on some of the lands around Dahlonega, you can still find tailing piles from the hydraulic mining days, and yes, there is still gold in them!

The California Gold Rush:

The gold rush in Georgia really died out when gold was discovered in California. With the difficulties of extracting the gold from the mountains, miners moved west and left the Georgia mountains. Wikipedia tells us the assayer at the Dahlonega Mint told the miners that there were still millions in the mountains, but he couldn’t persuade the miners to stay.

However, gold mining in Georgia wasn’t done. As mentioned above, commercial mining continued until the mid-20th century. The Consolidated Mine operated from 1895 until 1906 when the company failed. Whatever the reason it failed, it appears that it wasn’t due to a lack of gold! Below is a picture of the Glory Hole from the Consolidated Gold Mine.  The hole is shown looking upward. Imagine finding that much gold!

Consolidated Gold Mine Glory Hole

There is still gold in the Georgia mountains. It may be hard to come by, but the search is half the fun. I have a small sluice box that I use when I go gemstone hunting. I haven’t found any gold yet, but I have found where it wasn’t! Like Beebop’s character in The Gemstone Chronicles, though, I will keep looking because you never know! I might just start the next Georgia Gold Rush!

Are there gold mines where you live? Have you prospected? Just in case you might want to, here is a link to a site that gives links to prospecting clubs by state: http://www.goldminershq.com/clubs/gold1.htm.

Do you prospect? If so,leave me a comment with your search results. I want to hear about your adventures!

If you like this post, please feel free to comment and share. Feedback is always welcome!!

Happy prospecting!

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