In 1828, it is said that Benjamin Parks was deer hunting and overturned a rock laced with gold. Parks' discovery led to the first major gold rush in the U. S. and created overnight the boom town of Auraria, with a population of 10,000 by 1832. The first known Confederate soldier wounded in the battle of Manassas, N. C. Tankesley, was from Auraria, and the Russell brothers founded the first settlement at the present site of Denver, Colorado, and named it Auraria in honor of their hometown. But today Auraria is a ghost town with only a few buildings and a handful of people remaining. In 1832 Lumpkin County , named after then Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin, was organized by an Act of the Georgia Legislature. In 1833, Dahlonega was named the county seat. Soon after, John C. Calhoun, former U. S. Vice President and U. S. Senator from South Carolina, bought the Calhoun Mines in Lumpkin County. In 1838, the Cherokee were forced by the U. S. Government to leave their beloved mountain land for the reservations in Oklahoma. Some 4,000 Cherokees died during this "Trail of Tears."

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Dahlonega Georgia

Other Web Links Referencing Discovery of Gold 1828

Prospectors came from all over to mine for gold in county's hills
A History of Lumpkin County Georgia
Antebellum Georgia