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Remember
the North Carolina Gold Rush? In 1799— 50 years before the famous California gold rush— 12-year-old Conrad Reed unknowingly started the United States’ first gold rush when he found a large glittering rock in a creek on his father’s farm in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Conrad’s family used the rock as a doorstop for three years, not knowing that their doorstop was in fact a 17-pound gold nugget! Gold panning spread almost as quickly as the news to neighboring farms. In 1825, Mathias Barringer found gold in quartz veins and hard-rock mining started, which is when the gold rush really took off.
Pyrite, known as "fool’s gold," has a brassy color and is often tarnished brown. It weighs less than gold, and unlike gold, cannot be scratched by a pocketknife. Cool Links: The Gold Rush - Companion site to the PBS Documentary of the same name. All about the California gold rush, classroom resources, and fun facts for kids. Reed Gold Mine State Historic Site - History of John Reed's mine, from the North Carolina Office of Archives and History. back to Nature Notebook
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Even though
our gold mining industry declined long ago, it is still possible
to find gold
in North Carolina…but beware the sparkle
of fool’s gold!