Most Americans are familiar with the California gold rush of 1848. That one event caused an entire transformation of the state from a sleepy backwood into a hub of industry and trade. Since then, the state has enjoyed an association with financial success and helping hundreds of thousands of people to strike it rich. California’s population surged by 300,000 people between that initial report of gold and 1855 as literally tens of billions of USD in gold was mined and panned.\n\n\n\n
While no one disputes that California was home to the country’s most famous gold rush, it was not the first one in the country’s history. The honor of first gold rush happened in the previous century and on the other side of the nation. Roll the clock back to 1799 and turn your eye to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, now recognized as Cabarrus County, NC. Young Conrad Reed decided to kill some time by fishing within the portion of Little Meadow Creek that connected to his family’s property. Reed noticed something shimmering in the water and discover that it was a 17 pound hunk of gold.\n\n\n\n
Conrad’s father, “John”, actual name Johannes Reith; was dismissive of the find but eventually decided to have it analyzed in Fayetteville. The jeweler he reached out to asked Reed how much he wanted for the stone and John asked for $3.50. Realizing what he was holding, enough gold to be worth around $3,600, the jeweler immediately agreed.\n\n\n\n
Reed soon realized he had been fleeced and, rather than seeking retribution, gathered everything he could use to harvest more gold. Little Meadow became a mining operation that eventually unearthed a 26 pound nugget of gold. Thus began the very first gold rush in the country, attracting minors from all around the nation. Even President Thomas Jefferson chose to make an appearance in 1804, if only to verify that gold had indeed been discovered. Little Meadow was only the first of many profitable mines that would later become established in North Carolina\n\n\n\n
Come 1831, John Reed decided to expand his mine’s operation beyond just playing around at the earth’s surface and delve deeper into the soil. Recognizing the material wealth of the area, the government decided to establish a branch of the mint in neighboring Charlotte six years later. Due to some family squabbling, Reed’s mine eventually shuttered up. While his revenue had dried up, Reed managed to die rich and happy in 1845.\n\n\n\n
These circumstances resulted in North Carolina being the greatest source of American gold until California’s gold rush. Because California was all the way on the other side of the country, most of North Carolina’s gold mines slowly shut down over time. Presently, Reed Gold Mine is recognized as the country’s first authenticated gold find. This site is regarded as a National Historic Landmark and found among the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors to this historic locale can walk along restored mine tunnels and also pann for gold in the creek.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most Americans are familiar with the California gold rush of 1848. That one event caused an entire transformation of the state from a sleepy backwood into a hub of industry and trade. Since then, the state has enjoyed an association with financial success and helping hundreds of thousands of people to strike it rich. California’s […]\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":3239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3240,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions\/3240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastpedia.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}