Much like the slogans that have appeared on North Carolina's automotive license plates having the distinction of being first in the nation always seems to stir up a controversy. We were "First in Freedom" but ended up having to remove that slogan from our license plates. Now we are "First in Flight" and a group in New England wants to argue that. So not surprisingly when we make the claim "First Gold Rush in the United States" we get an argument from our neighbors down in Georgia.

The debate hinges on the definition one associates with the term "Gold Rush." If the mention of a gold rush congers up visions of miners rushing in to stake their claims, individual prospectors searching out gold deposits, and all the other trappings that go with the Hollywood image of a gold rush, then you are going to be disappointed. That scenario never happened in North Carolina. However, if you define a gold rush as a rapid influx of people knowledgeable in the science and processes of mining into the area, the establishment of a new industry and new found economic importance in response to a new discovery then we have a claim.

Understand that even in 1799 when gold was first found and 1803 when it was discovered to actually be gold the state of North Carolina already had a structured government both at the state and local level. County governments had issued deeds on land holdings, which were duly recorded in the county records. When gold was discovered it was inevitably on private or state property. There was no land were one could go and "stake their claim" as was later the case in the Georgia Indian lands or California. Anyone other than the land owner mining the gold was guilty of trespassing and could be subject to prosecution or worse yet lead poisoning (Shot! For you all that ain't from 'round here).

Placer deposits of gold, gold which lay in surface deposits along and in stream beds that could be mined with pick, shovel, and pan, covered over 1000 square miles in North Carolina. Many farmers, who knew nothing about mining, suddenly became miners. Many would continue to farm during the growing season and then mine their streams and fields in the late fall and winter. They met with mixed results and many just ended up washing the topsoil essential to their farming efforts away causing more economic harm than gain. What was need were professional miners and geologists to bring the North Carolina gold fields to their full potential.

Beginning with the first deposit of native mined gold from North Carolina at the Philadelphia Mint on May 25, 1804, newspapers throughout the country and Europe began reporting on the great gold finds in North Carolina. Each new mine opening, each new find of a large nugget created new stories in the press which attracted speculators, entrepreneurs, mine operators, and miners to North Carolina like iron to a magnet. Many farms were sold to speculators who had no designs on farming but who had visions of striking it rich as mine operators. Some farmers sold the mineral rights to their property to entrepreneurs who would mine for gold along the streams on their farm while the farmers stuck to their specialty - farming. Miners came from or were brought from all parts of the country, Mexico, South America, and Europe. There is documented evidence of some resentment and animosity towards these foreigners by the local population that sometimes resulted in violence. None the less, the "rush" was on!

Perhaps the best way to get a taste of the mining industry that developed in North Carolina is to take a quick look at a few of the more than one hundred plus mines that operated in the state at various times. But first lets take a brief look at the over all impact of the mining industry in the state. By the peak in the 1830s and 1840s there were as many as 56 mines operating simultaneously in North Carolina. There were also an estimated 25,000 people employed in the mining industry which led to the creation of many new "boom" towns in the state to support the growing industry. Until 1829 North Carolina was the only state producing domestic gold for our nation's coinage. Virginia and South Carolina made their first shipments of gold to the Philadelphia Mint in that year and Georgia followed in 1830. Still North Carolina remained the largest domestic producer of gold until surpassed by the new finds in California in 1848.

We will now start our look at individual mines appropriately with the Reed Mine, were it all started, in Cabarrus County. John Reed with associates Frederick Kisor, James Love, and Mathew Phifer established a mine on the Reed farm in 1803. In operations from 1804 to 1846 the mine yielded an estimated $1,000,000 worth of gold. The mine was reopened in 1895 where on April 1, 1896 a 246.83-ounce (Troy) nugget was found. Refined this nugget yielded 120.87 ounces fine gold and 5.99 ounces fine silver proving there still was plenty of gold in them thar hills! The reopening of the mine was short lived and it eventually became a North Carolina historical site.

Next, we'll take a quick look at a mining company that was formed in 1806. This company is not important for the amount of gold produced because it never produced a single ounce. But it is important for it illustrates to what levels the speculation in North Carolina gold reached. The company was formed by Dr. William Thornton who was a prominent Washington, DC architect and a patent clerk at the United States Patent Office. Interestingly, trustees in the company included none other than Albert Gallatin the then Treasurer of the United States and the president of the Bank of the United States. Many prominent Americans and Europeans invested in the various mining operations and gold speculation schemes in North Carolina.

One such European was Count Ravafanoli who operated a mine in Mecklenburg County known as the Rudisill Mine. Count Ravafanoli recruited and brought experienced miners from Europe, especially Italy to work his mine. The Rudisill was one of the richest and most profitable in Mecklenburg County bringing yields as high as $72.41 per ton of ore processed. The Rudisill also has the distinction of being the only mine in the Charlotte area to still be operating at the end of the Civil War.

Another highly profitable Mecklenburg County mine was the McComb Mine (later renamed the Old Charlotte Mine and then the St. Catherine Mine). Opened in 1825 by Samuel McComb, this mine was the first documented departure from placer mining in that it was the first reported attempt to follow a vein of gold. The McComb was also a high yielding operation and it was later determined that the McComb was on the north end of the same vein that the Rudisill was exploiting from the south.

This all too brief taste of the truly interesting and exciting history of gold in North Carolina during the first half of the nineteenth century does not begin do justice to an era when our state was known as the "Golden State". This subject warrants deeper study and research, which the reporting of would probably produce nothing short of a book. Unfortunately a project of this scope is currently beyond my time constraints now, but in the future you never know.