When you hear the words ‘Gold Rush’ in America you think about one place and one place only. California. California is the most famous location for the American Gold Rush. In a seven-year period starting in 1848, the population exploded as people came from far and wide to find their golden fortunes. Yet it was not the first gold rush in the United States. The first place to ever have ‘gold fever’ was North Carolina on the opposite side of the country.
While California will always be known as the Gold Rush State due to the incredible amount of gold that was found there and how many people flocked to the state to make their fortunes, North Carolina has its place in history too. While North Carolina did not see the 300,000 population increase over seven years that California did, nor did it discover 10s of billions of dollars worth of gold as California did, it is where the first gold rush began.
In 1799 when Conrad Reed set out for a day of fishing he had no idea what was about to happen. The fortunate boy found a large shiny rock in the river where he fished and brought it home to his father. His father didn’t recognize it as gold and left it idle for a number of years. Then one day on a trip to the town he decided to bring it to a jeweler.
Once the jeweler saw the incredible 17-pound nugget of gold he asked how much Reed wanted. The man asked for just over $3. Having no idea how much the rock was worth (around $3,600 at the time) he set off for home incredibly happy with his sale. It didn’t take long for word to reach him of his error. Instead of marching back into town and demanding more money, Reed started digging his land up. He found many more nuggets of gold and this time managed to sell them for a much higher price. It did not take long for word to get out and soon people were coming from all over America to try and gather their fortune during the first-ever gold rush.