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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, 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 in 1848, starting the Califoed to what is called the 'Georgia Gold Rush', there were reports of gold in the North Georgia Mountains much earlier. 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.^[1] In summing up known sources, 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.'^[2]

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North Carolina gold rush[edit]

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.'^[3]:8,12

In 1799, gold was discovered in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, when Conrad Reed found a 17-pound 'glittering stone' in 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 quartzvein by Mathias Barringer along Long Creek in Stanly County, North Carolina. The gold belt was extended north into Virginia, and south into South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.^[3]:11–12

1828 Georgia discovery[edit]

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, in Dukes Creek.
• 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.
• 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.^[3]:21–22

Gold rush[edit]

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.^[4]

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.'^[3]:25

Gold was discovered in Carroll County, Georgia, in 1830.^[3]:28 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, 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,^[3]:25 and over 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.^[3]:28

Other estimates were that in 1831 there were 6,000 to 10,000 miners between the Chestatee River and the Etowah River. Boom towns like Auraria and Dahlonega began to appear. and 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 northeastern-most county, Rabun.

The culmination of tensions between the Cherokee and various states, including Georgia, led to the forced migration of Native Americans, later known as the Trail of Tears.^[5] President Andrew Jackson authorized the Indian Removal Act 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, but the following year, in Worcester v. Georgia reversed this decision to recognize the Cherokee as a sovereign nation.^[6] Jackson proceeded with removal of remaining Cherokee from the North Georgia gold fields.^[7]

The Philadelphia Mint received over half a million dollars in gold from Georgia in 1832.^[3]:28 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.^[3]:80

In 1838, the Dahlonega Mint was established by Congress, as a branch 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.^[3]:70–71

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.^[3]:72–73 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.^[3]:76

Nevertheless, by the 1840s gold mining saw a sharp decline, as the gold began to 'play out'.^[3]:79

Aftermath[edit]

When news of the California Gold Rush reached Georgia, many miners moved west in search of more gold; the assayer 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.'^[3]:118

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.^[3]:120 There were some 500 mines in 37 different counties. The Civil War 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.^{[3]:120–121}

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.^[8]

Before they were expelled, the Cherokee gained enough gold-mining experience to participate in later gold rushes in California in 1849 and Colorado in 1859. Cherokee gold miners gave the name to the town of Cherokee, California,^[9] 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. 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 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.^[3]:120 The town of Golden, Colorado, is named after Georgia miner Thomas L. Golden. Another Georgia gold miner, John H. Gregory, discovered the first lode gold in Colorado in 1859.^[10]

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.^[11]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Duane K. Hale (1981) Mineral exploration in the Spanish borderlands 1513-1846, Jour. of the West, v.20 n.2, p.5-20.
2. ^W.S. Yeates and others (1896) 'A Preliminary Report on a Part of the Gold Deposits of Georgia', Geological Survey of Georgia, Bulletin No. 4-A, p.28.
3. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopq}Williams, David, 1993, The Georgia Gold Rush: Twenty-Niners, Cherokees, and Gold Fever, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, ISBN1570030529
4. ^The New Georgia Encyclopedia
5. ^Swanson, Drew (2016). 'From Georgia to California and Back: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Southern Gold Mining'. Georgia Historical Quarterly. 100 (2): 160.
6. ^Pratt, Adam J. (2016). 'Violence and the competition for sovereignty in Cherokee Country, 1829-1835'. American Nineteenth Century History. 17 (2): 181–197. doi:10.1080/14664658.2016.1215018. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
7. ^'A Brief History of the Trail of Tears'. Cherokee Nation. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
8. ^A.H. Koschmann and M.H. Bergendahl (1968) 'Principal Gold-Producing Districts of the United States', US Geological Survey, Professional Paper 610, p.119.
9. ^William B. Clark, 1970, 'Gold Districts of California,' California Division of Mines and Geology, Bulletin 193, p.36.
10. ^Robert L. Brown (1984) The Great Pikes Peak Gold Rush, Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, p.12-32.
11. ^Don Spritzer (1999) Roadside History of Montana, Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press, ISBN0-87842-395-8, p.248.

Further reading[edit]

• 'Gold-Mining in Georgia.' Harper's New Monthly Magazine 59, Issue 352 (September 1879): 517-519. Available here [1]

External links[edit]

• An Act to authorize Governor George R. Gilmer to take possession of gold, silver and other mines in Cherokee Country^{[permanent dead link]}, 2 December 1830. From the collection of the Georgia Archives.
• 'Thar's gold in them thar hills': Gold and Gold Mining in Georgia, 1830s-1940s from the Digital Library of Georgia
• Cherokee County Gold historical marker

Casinos are Illegal in Georgia

No Indian Casinos Currently in Georgia

Georgia law prohibits casino gambling, however, the United Keetooway Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma would like to change that. The tribe is in the initial planning stages of for seeking approval of a tribal casino. Their progress will be tracked in our News secttion below.

News Headlines

Georgia will consider proposal for 3 major casinos

August 04, 2018

A casino opening in Georgia is becoming closer to a reality. Consideration of legalizing gambling in the state is being approached again by State Rep. Ron Stephans. The Republican congressman will be addressing the next General Assembly about allowing for the development of three casino resorts in the state where the cost would be billions of dollars to complete.

Under the proposed plan by Stephens, a minimum investment of $1.2 billion must be made and a minimum of 10,000 jobs must be created by each approved casino.

Gaming in Georgia has had a series of opposition. One being that it is considered competition to the HOPE scholarship program. It is funded by the state lottery.

The expansion of gaming in the state has been consistently opposed by Gov. Nathan Deal. As well as Secretary of State Brian Kemp. He will be running as the nominee in the gubernatorial race this election year.

In the legislative session for 2019 to 2020, Stephens will push for the proposed gaming bill to be placed on the ballot for the state's voters to decide on.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted a poll in 2017. 56 percent of the people polled would be in favor of casinos. The lottery was approved by voters by a slim margin in 1992. Since that time the opinion of casinos has soften.

$670 million is spent at casinos in nearby states by Georgia residents. It is estimated that $2.5 billion could be spent in Georgia by residents before accounting for tourist dollars.

News Headlines Continued

February 04, 2016
Voters May Decide in November on GA Casinos

In November voters may have the opportunity to vote on a bill that would allow for Las Vegas style casinos in the state.

Next month the legislative session will end and there is increased interest to address the bill as a way to increase tax revenue for the state. A two thirds vote approval is needed in both the Senate and the House.

As early as next week a horse racing bill will voted on. The result of that vote could effect the casino bill.

Casinos Near Georgia

The measure would allow for voters to decide if they want a casino in their area.

There would be five regions that the state would be sectioned into. There would be up to six casinos allowed in the state.

84 percent of the voters are interested in voting on the matter.

January 15, 2009
Atlanta's Underground casino plan

ATLANTA - A $450 million project has been proposed to the Georgia Lottery to redevelop Underground Atlanta with 5,000 video lottery terminals, a new 29-story hotel, and upscale restaurants and retailers.

Developer Dan O'Leary, who holds a 50-year lease on Underground, said 'In order to truly change the perception of Underground, we do have to bring a very significant element to that property that it doesn't have now -- a big draw. VLT machines would be an anchor tenant that would bring folks in.'

The video lottery terminals look like slot machines, but operate like lottery scratch-off tickets such as 'Slots of luck' and 'Hold 'em poker.' Georgia law prohibits Las Vegas-style gaming, but the lottery law does not specifically prohibit video lottery terminals. The lottery board would own and operate the terminals.

O'Leary estimates the casino revenues would be $600 million annually with half going to the lottery.

William Pate, president of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, says his organization would promote it since many of Atlanta's competitors, such as New Orleans and Las Vegas, already have gaming.

Tom Bell, chairman and CEO of Cousins Properties and chairman of the Central Atlanta Progress board, said it 'would be a good thing for the city of Atlanta. We are slowly developing an increasingly strong offering as a tourist destination. Having an additional major attraction downtown would be a benefit.'

January 28, 2008
Study Recommends Casinos in Atlanta

ATLANTA, GA - The Atlanta Business Chronicle reported the findings of a recent study about legalizing casinos in Atlanta. The report by PKF Hospitality Research was requested by high level Atlanta business leaders who want to keep Atlanta competitive as a top tourist destination.

REPORT FINDINGS
Based on at least one Las Vegas-style casino built in downtown Atlanta:

• Adds up to $1.7 billion to Atlanta's economy
• Creates 10,800 new jobs
• Adds $136.3 million in annual tax revenues
• Adds nearly $3 million in city hotel-motel taxes
• May bring massive redevelopment of the central business district

The report cited other cities where gambling and conventions work together to attract more visitors:
- 1st-ranked Las Vegas has $6 billion in casino revenue
- 2nd-ranked Chicagoland, Ind., has $5 billion
- 16th-ranked New Orleans has $534 million

The social cost of problem gambling is also reported and could cost Atlanta $320 million a year. About 8% of Americans over 18 are susceptible to gambling dependency. If there is a casino within 50 miles, it is estimated this percentage doubles.

Map Of Dalton Ga

Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts has long been an advocate for local casinos. 'Georgians love to gamble,' he said. 'Georgians go to the Carolinas, and Mississippi and Nevada in huge numbers. It's my prediction that within five years, we will have casino gambling here in the state of Georgia.'

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