American gold discoveries that changed the nation’s history
Daniel Coughlin
04 February 2019
The gold discoveries that changed US history
The world's fourth largest producer of gold, America mined a bewildering 7.9 million troy ounces of the precious metal in 2017 and is estimated to have matched that amount in 2018, according to the US Geological Survey, with the state of Nevada accounting for almost 80% of the nation's output. Gold mining in the US has a long and fascinating, though often checkered, history. We take a look at the biggest discoveries in the country from the very first gold rush to the present day.
The Carolina Gold Rush
The history of gold production in the US dates back to 1799 when 12-year-old Conrad Reed, who had skipped school to go fishing, discovered a 248-troy ounce nugget in Little Meadow Creek, North Carolina.
The Carolina Gold Rush
Conrad brought the lustrous stone home to his father, farmer John Reed, who thought it was just a pretty-looking yellow stone, and the weighty nugget was used as a doorstop for a good three years. In 1802, John Reed showed the rock to a jeweler, who immediately identified it as gold.
The Carolina Gold Rush
The jeweler, who kept quiet about the nugget's genuine value, snapped up the rock for the equivalent of a week's wages for a farm worker, a paltry amount given its true worth, but John Reed soon found out the curious stone he sold for next to nothing was indeed gold.
The Carolina Gold Rush
Reed teamed up with three savvy prospectors, and in 1808 the men found a nugget weighing 408 troy ounces. News of their discovery spread far and wide, sparking America's first gold rush, the Carolina Gold Rush.
The Carolina Gold Rush
Prospectors descended on Reed's farm and the surrounding area, and initially used the placer mining method, which involves recovering the precious metal from stream beds. When the placer deposits were exhausted, miners, many of whom were enslaved Africans, went underground to extract the gold from the mother lode.
The Carolina Gold Rush
North Carolina remained America's leading producer of gold until 1848. From 1799 to 1849, an impressive 267,422 troy ounces worth $349 million at today's prices were extracted in the Tar Heel State.
The Georgia Gold Rush
While North Carolina was the chief gold producer in the US before 1848, the precious metal was also 'discovered' in Georgia in 1828, though gold is thought to have been mined in the region on a small scale from the 16th century onward by Native Americans, as well as French and Spanish prospectors.
The Georgia Gold Rush
Historians have been unable to pinpoint exactly who made the discovery in 1828, but the first mention of the find appeared the following year in the Georgia Journal newspaper, initiating America's second great gold rush, the Georgia Gold Rush.
The Georgia Gold Rush
Prospectors headed to the Chattahoochee and Etowah Rivers, and started out panning for the precious metal, but by the early 1830s much of the area's gold was being mined on land belonging to the Cherokee Nation.
The Georgia Gold Rush
Dubbed 'the Great Intrusion', thousands of miners headed to the region, mainly to boom towns such as Dahlonega and Auraria. During the early 1830s, around 273 troy ounces were being extracted every day.
The Georgia Gold Rush
This massive influx of miners led to tensions with the local Cherokee population, which culminated in the forced removal of the Native Americans from their ancestral lands, the infamous Trail of Tears. Thousands of Cherokee and other Native American peoples perished as a result.
The Georgia Gold Rush
By the 1840s, the lion's share of gold in the area had been depleted. Discoveries of the yellow stuff declined markedly, and prospectors keen to make their fortune began to hold out for another great gold rush.
The California Gold Rush
Their dreams came true on January 24 1848 when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California by mill operator James W. Marshall (pictured). News of the find was announced in March 1848 by a San Francisco newspaper, and reached the East Coast in August of that year.
The California Gold Rush
The news brought an influx of 250,000 fortune seekers to California from other parts of America and the world, many of whom arrived in 1849. Dubbed the 'forty-niners', these prospectors flocked in the most part to the Sierra Nevada foothills and San Francisco, where the population skyrocketed.
The California Gold Rush
Prospectors started out by panning for the rich alluvial deposits, but by 1853 hydraulic mining had emerged, and thereafter the gold was extracted on an industrial scale. Outrageous fortunes were made by a lucky few, but many of the forty-niners earned very little.
The California Gold Rush
As was the case in Georgia, the immigrant miners displaced much of the Native American population. Large numbers of indigenous Californians succumbed to starvation, disease and genocide, and their numbers dwindled significantly.
The California Gold Rush
By 1855, 10.9 million troy ounces of gold had been mined worth a staggering $14.2 billion at current prices, and the US was producing half the world's supply of the precious metal.
The California Gold Rush
America's most famous gold rush was a key factor in establishing the nation as a major global economic power, and California attained fully-fledged statehood in 1850 due to the immigrant population explosion. This daguerreotype (early photo) shows the fast-growing city of San Francisco in 1850/51.
The Colorado Gold Rush
Originally called the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, the Colorado Gold Rush began in July 1858 in Pike's Peak County, which was then located in western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory – it became part of Colorado Territory in 1861.
The Colorado Gold Rush
Gold had been found the previous year by prospectors Green Russell and Sam Bates following a tip-off from local Cherokee tribe members. Like the California Gold Rush, the discovery attracted legions of fortune seekers.
The Colorado Gold Rush
As many as 100,000 prospectors headed to Pike's Peak County, mainly to an area along the South Platte River. The gold seekers became known as the 'fifty-niners' (the peak of the gold rush was in 1859), and adopted the motto “Pike's Peak or Bust”.
The Colorado Gold Rush
In 1859, more substantial gold deposits were found at Clear Creek, not far from Denver, and copious placer deposits were discovered in the Breckenridge and South Park areas. Other key finds were made in the Leadville area, which later became renowned for its silver deposits.
The Colorado Gold Rush
The boom times lasted until the mid-1860s, when prospectors realized they had effectively exhausted the shallower gold deposits, and lacked the technology to extract the precious metal from the deeper ores.
The Colorado Gold Rush
The Colorado Gold Rush wasn't quite as bountiful as its predecessor in California. Still, by 1865, a whopping 1.1 million troy ounces had been extracted, which at today's prices would be worth around $1.4 billion.
The Black Hills Gold Rush
America's next great gold rush took place from 1874/75 and peaked in 1876/77. In 1874, General Armstrong Custer led an expedition to the Black Hills in Dakota Territory to investigate rumors of large deposits of gold in the area. At the time, the area was owned by the Lakota Sioux, who had been ceded the territory in 1868.
The Black Hills Gold Rush
Custer and his men discovered small amounts of the precious metal near modern-day Custer, and larger placer deposits were found in 1875. This prompted a major gold rush, and thousands of prospectors poured into the newly-created town of Deadwood to try their luck.
The Black Hills Gold Rush
Needless to say, the sudden arrival of thousands of gold seekers claiming land left, right and center didn't go down well with the Lakota Sioux and their allies, and the influx ended up triggering the Great Sioux War of 1876.
The Black Hills Gold Rush
The Native American forces famously defeated General Custer's army in June 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, aka Custer's Last Stand, but were eventually forced to surrender. By the following year, a vast swathe of land belonging to the Lakota Sioux had been seized.
The Black Hills Gold Rush
Placer gold was reasonably plentiful in the area, but three experienced prospectors managed to locate the abundant hard rock source of the alluvial gold near the modern-day city of Lead. They claimed the land and named their mine Homestake.
The Black Hills Gold Rush
The Homestake mine went on to produce a jaw-dropping 10% of the world's gold supply until its closure in 2002. All in all, more than 40 million troy ounces were extracted from the tremendously productive mine, working out at around $52.2 billion at today's prices.
The Klondike Gold Rush
Though it was largely centered on Canada's Yukon territory, which borders the state of Alaska, the Klondike Gold Rush is also regarded as an American gold rush given the vast majority of fortune seekers arrived from the contiguous US.
The Klondike Gold Rush
Local miners discovered large quantities of gold along the Klondike River in August 1896. When news of their find reached the cities of Seattle and San Francisco, a stampede of prospectors, dubbed the 'Klondikers', swarmed the area.
The Klondike Gold Rush
Like the California Gold Rush, only a lucky few got rich. The journey to the region was fraught with difficulty, and life in the Yukon territory, which endures some of most brutal winters on the planet, was unforgiving. Plus, getting at the gold in the permafrosted ground proved an impossible challenge for many.
The Klondike Gold Rush
In fact, 98% of the Klondikers failed to find any gold, and thousands of prospectors never returned. The First Nations Han people also suffered greatly. The indigenous tribe was forcibly removed to a reservation and many of them died in the process. The Klondike Gold Rush caused severe environmental damage to the region as well.
The Klondike Gold Rush
The fortunate arrivals, a tiny minority, made a lot of money. They included one Friedrich Trump, the German-born grandfather of the current US president, who originated the family fortune by running restaurants and hotels in the area.
The Klondike Gold Rush
The end of the gold rush came in 1899 as prospectors increasingly came to the realization that much of the money had already been made and opportunities were now few and far between. In total, the Klondike Gold Rush is thought to have yielded 2.2 million troy ounces of the precious metal worth roughly $2.9 billion at current prices.
The Nome Gold Rush
As the Klondike Gold Rush was coming to an end, the so-called 'Three Lucky Swedes', a trio of Scandinavian-born Americans, struck gold at Alaska's Anvil Creek in fall 1898, and established the Nome mining district.
The Nome Gold Rush
Reports of the Nordic trio's find resulted in an exodus of Klondikers from Yukon, and when gold was discovered literally littering the beach at Nome, prospectors began arriving from Seattle and San Francisco, and even as far afield as Adelaide, Australia.
The Nome Gold Rush
The gold rush is notable for its numerous incidences of 'claim jumping', with many prospectors filing claims for the same pieces of land. The population of Nome swelled to 20,000 in next to no time, and the town attracted all sorts of fortune seekers including lawman Wyatt Earp, who operated a saloon.
The Nome Gold Rush
In 1905, bustling Nome had everything from churches and schools to stores and saloons, and boasted America's first wireless telegraph. Once the easily extracted gold was exhausted however, the gold rush ended, and Nome's population dropped to 2,600 by 1909.
The Nome Gold Rush
Yet again, the biggest losers were the area's indigenous peoples, who had their lives turned upside down by the gold rush. The immigrant population explosion and surge in mining activity led to a marked decrease in game animals and destroyed the salmon streams they relied on for food.
The Nome Gold Rush
The biggest winners made serious cash, including the Three Lucky Swedes, who amassed $20 million. Industrial and recreational gold extraction continues in the Nome mining district to this day. To date, 3.3 million troy ounces have been recovered, worth $4.3 billion at current prices.
The Fairbanks Gold Rush
The last great American gold rush took place from 1902. Italian-born immigrant Felice Pedroni, aka Felix Pedro, who had spent years searching for the precious metal, finally discovered gold in the summer of 1902 in the remote Tanana River valley in Alaska's harsh interior.
The Fairbanks Gold Rush
Word soon got out about Pedroni's find, and prospectors began descending on the valley in search of the valuable metal. The population of the small trading post of Fairbanks mushroomed, with many of the new arrivals hailing from Nome on the coast.
The Fairbanks Gold Rush
Local trader E. T. Barnette, who is credited with founding Fairbanks, led the bulk of the mining operations, and hired many of the fortune-seeking newcomers finding work for them panning and sluicing gold in and around the Fairbanks area.
The Fairbanks Gold Rush
Big business then got in on the act, and the Fairbanks Exploration Company bought up most of the claims in the area, importing gold sledges via the Alaska Railroad, which was constructed during the 1900s and 1910s.
The Fairbanks Gold Rush
The era of individuals cashing in on extracting gold had come to an end. From the 1910s onward, gold extraction in the US has been carried out in the most part by mining companies. The precious metal is still mined around Fairbanks.
The Fairbanks Gold Rush
Since 1902, 10.9 million troy ounces worth $14.2 billion at current prices have been produced around the Alaskan city. For much of the 20th century, Alaska, South Dakota and Colorado were America's major gold-producing states, but this all changed in the 1960s.
The Carlin Trend
Nevada was known more for its silver than gold mining before the 1960s. In the summer of 1961, the Newmont Mining Corporation discovered an enormous low-grade deposit of the yellow stuff at Carlin, which has since transformed the gold mining industry in America.
The Carlin Trend
Measuring five miles wide and 40 miles long, the Carlin Trend geological feature was found to be packed with gold which, thanks to advances in technology, was able to be extracted. Newmont dug an open-pit mine, and began production in 1965.
The Carlin Trend
However, it wasn't until the late 1970s that extraction of gold from the mine really took off. The price of the valuable metal went through the roof during this time, and production at the mine increased accordingly.
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The Carlin Trend
A corporate gold rush occurred during the 1980s. By this point, the Carlin Trend mine was extracting more of the precious metal than any other, and Nevada had become the nation's leading gold-producing state.
The Carlin Trend
Other profitable mines were opened along the Carlin Trend, and by 2002 the geological feature had supplied America with 50 million troy ounces of gold worth $65.2 billion at today's prices.
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The Carlin Trend
To date, an eye-watering 76.6 million troy ounces worth just under $100 billion at current prices has been recovered from the mines, and supplies of the precious metal won't be running out anytime soon. Experts believe the Carlin Trend still holds 97.5 million troy ounces of gold, which would have a value of $127.1 billion on today's market.
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