Gold
History Price
World Silver
Price
Silver History Price
World
Platinum Price
Platinum History Price
Featured Item
THE HISTORY OF GOLD
OTHER SIGNIFICANT GOLD RUSHES
Article # : gold170
OTHER SIGNIFICANT GOLD RUSHES
North Carolina and Georgia
The first documented gold find in the United States was in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, in 1799. Conrad Reed, a farmer's son, brought home a curious, 17-pound yellow "rock." His family used the nugget as a doorstop for three years before it was finally identified as gold. The Reed family began to mine gold the next year. They ran a placer mining operation at first—that is, the gold was in surface deposits—but underground mining began in 1831, after the discovery of a subsurface vein.
Enslaved Africans made up the labor force at the Reed Mine. In some southern mines they were allowed to keep a small amount of the gold they found to buy their freedom.
North Carolina led the United States in gold production until 1848, when gold was discovered in California.
Although gold had been mined in Georgia since the 1500s, first by the Cherokee and later by the Spanish, the rediscovery of gold in the 1820s brought a rush of thousands of prospectors to the region. By 1830, 8,500 grams (273 troy ounces) was being mined every day. The federal government produced the first gold coins at its mint in Dahlonega, Georgia.
Black Hills and Lead, South Dakota
In 1874, two miners, apparently part of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer's expeditionary force, discovered gold in the Black Hills. News that Custer's expedition had found gold spread quickly and sparked the Black Hills gold rush.
In 1876, Fred and Moses Manuel, along with Hank Harney and Alex Engh, staked a claim near present-day Lead, South Dakota. They named their claim the Homestake. By the time it closed in December 2001, the Homestake Mine ranked as the oldest continuously operating mine in the United States. It had produced nearly 10% of the country's total gold supply.
The Homestake Mine is the deepest mine in North America. Its 375 miles of tunnels are as deep as 8,000 feet below Earth's surface.
Witwatersrand Goldfields, South Africa
Out on a hunting trip in 1834, Carel Kruger discovered gold in the Witwatersrand region of north-central South Africa. It was not until 1886, however, that gold deposits large enough to be profitable were found. Since then, South Africa has become the largest gold producer in the world.
Of all the gold ever mined, 40 percent has come from South Africa. About 98 percent of that gold came from the deep mines of the Witwatersrand region.
Source: AMNH.org