![]() ![]() A separate vertical shaft also was excavated near the open pit. Near the bottom of the pit, large tunnels extend sideways into the walls. Its walls reach much higher than some trees now growing in the bottom of the mine. After his death in the war, Fort Fisher on the coast of North Carolina was named for him. Fisher, a well-known industrialist and head of the North Carolina Railroad. One person involved with management of Russell Mine prior to the Civil War was Charles F. Archaeologists from Wake Forest University and the Uwharrie National Forest recently explored and began to document the historic mine site. Located in northern Montgomery County, it is near a crossroads aptly named El Dorado for the mythical city of gold that early Spanish explorers searched for. ![]() The Russell Mine was one of the largest gold mines in the Uwharries. ![]() Later in the century, miners even used dredges (machines that remove earth) to search the sands of the Uwharrie River. These included placer mines, where pressurized water was used to wash gold from hillsides shaft mines dug into hillsides and large, open pit mines. At least fifteen mines, including the Russell Mine, opened in the Uwharries before the Civil War. Companies formed to finance mining operations. North Carolina experienced a gold rush in the 1820s and 1830s, becoming the nation’s largest producer of gold before the great California gold rush of 1849.īy the 1830s, gold prospectors and miners had moved into the Uwharrie Mountain region, searching the hills and panning the streams. Gold fever set in, as others tried to make their fortunes through mining. A lot of gold was recovered from the Reed Gold Mine, making Reed a wealthy man. Tar Heel gold had first been found in 1799 on John Reed’s farm in Cabarrus County, several miles west of the Uwharrie Mountains. In the early decades of the 1800s, the southern Piedmont's gold mines attracted prospectors, investors, and miners. Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History Reprinted with permission from the Tar Heel Junior Historian. Gold Mining in the Uwharries "Mining for Mystery in the Uwharries" ![]()
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