With the price of gold rising and the economy falling, there is a new gold rush. Reports from California said that panning for gold is becoming popular for people looking to make money.
The story from KTLA in Los Angeles says geologist estimates that only 20-percent of the gold was found during the 1849 gold rush. Today, the new gold rush is occurring within an hour of downtown Los Angeles. This is the story from KTLA:
Could there be gold in other places? Before the 1849 California Gold rush, the news of the Carolina Gold Rush followed the 1799 discovery of gold by Conrad Reed outside of Charlotte in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. In 1829, gold was discovered in Lumpkin County, Georgia near Dahlonaga. By 1837, Congress authorized the building of the Charlotte and Dahlonaga Branch Mints for the minting of gold coins.
But these areas are not open to general exploration. The Reed Gold Mine is a State Historic Site with restrictions on where visitors can explore. In Dahlonega, Consolidated Gold Mines, Inc. own the area of the Georgia gold discovery. Panning and searching for gold in those areas are limited to their pre-determined “experience.”
During my teen years growing up in Charlotte, there were rumors of gold under the buildings of downtown Charlotte. It was said that the small amount of gold under the streets and the effort it would take to get to it through the hard clay soil made it economically infeasible. Could the economics have changed enough to try to mine under the streets of Charlotte?
Are there other areas where gold may be found? Gold was found in southeast Alaska in 1872, near Juneau in 1880, and the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. Could Alaska be another place for modern day gold prospectors?
Could there be an undiscovered area prime for a modern day gold rush?