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 Lumpkin County is a county located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,488. Its county seat is Dahlonega. History This area was settled by the Cherokee, who also occupie ...

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, 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 The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

in 1848, starting the

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

. Since the 16th century, American Indians in Georgia told European 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 WS, Ws, or ws may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Ware Shoals Railroad (reporting mark WS) * WestJet (IATA airline code WS) * Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, in post-nomial abbreviation * Williams Street, the production arm f ...

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 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 The Carolina Gold Rush, the first gold rush in the United States, followed the discovery of a large gold nugget in North Carolina in 1799, by a 12-year-old boy named Conrad Reed. He spotted the nugget while playing in Meadow Creek on his family's ...

resulted in placer mining, the discovery of a gold-rich quartz

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 oxygenated ...

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 ...

. 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 Habersh ...

, 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, at

Ward's Creek Ward's is an American organization that has covered the automotive industry for over 80 years. The organization is responsible for several publications including, '' Ward's AutoWorld'', and ''Ward's Dealer Business''. Ward's also publish the a ...

. *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, 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 Carroll County is a county located in the northwestern part of the State of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, its population was 119,148. Its county seat is the city of Carrollton. Carroll County is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell ...

, in 1830. Although much of the land on which the gold was found was under the control of the Cherokee, mining operations quickly sprang up in Lumpkin, White,

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 ** ''U ...

, and Cherokee 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 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 The Etowah River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 27, 2011 waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, north of Atlanta. On Matthew Carey's 1795 ...

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

, 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. 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. 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 in 1830, which would allow a takeover of the gold mining areas among other places. The

Cherokee Nation The Cherokee Nation ( Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ ''Tsalagihi Ayeli'' or ᏣᎳᎩᏰᎵ ''Tsalagiyehli''), also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. ...

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 ''Worcester v. Georgia'', 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from bei ...

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 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 was established by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

, as a

branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...

of the United States Mint. 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 mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operatio ...

s 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

reached Georgia, many miners moved west in search of more gold; the

assay An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of a ...

er of the Dahlonega Mint, 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 Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.Paul W. Thrush, ''A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms'', US Bureau of Mines, 1968, p.560. In the placer mining of ...

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 policie ...

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 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 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 western edge of the ...

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, 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 in ...

. 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 Auraria was a small mining settlement in the Kansas Territory in the United States. Today it survives in its original location as a neighborhood of Denver, Colorado, south of the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. Geography ...

, 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 Thomas L. "Tom" Golden was a miner from Georgia, United States, who was one of the earliest prospectors in present-day Jefferson County, Colorado. Golden arrived in the then-Kansas Territory in 1858 around the beginning of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush. ...

. 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, 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

External links