Reed Gold Mine, where it started

In 1799 a twelve-year-old named Conrad Reed found a seventeen-pound yellow rock in Little Meadow Creek and the family used it as a doorstop for three years before a jeweller offered a price. He got $3.50 for a nugget worth thousands. That is the first documented gold find in the United States, and it set off the Carolina gold rush thirty years before Georgia and fifty before California. The site is a state historic site with restored underground workings you can walk, and seasonal panning.