I spent Saturday with the current owner of the old Cavender Creek gold mine site. He bought 13 acres of the property, including the original main mine shaft 17 years ago and has since filled in the main mine shaft (bummer) and built a house and 11 cabins on the property which he rents out to tourists.
He's a long time associate of mine through the local Chamber of Commerce and other business related organizations, so we're well acquainted with each other. I had approached him about prospecting on the property offering to give him half of what I found, but he said he didn't want anything I found. He said that I was free to do what I wanted as long as I didn't use noise producing equipment that would disturb his guests. So, no power dredges, no backhoes, etc, but anything else goes as long as it doesn't make noise or otherwise interfere with his guest's experience.
We spent six hours on Saturday covering every inch of the 13 acres. This property changes in elevation by about 2000 feet, so I was pretty worn out by the end of the day. We went up and down the mountains numerous times and he showed me several locations of old mining activities, such as big holes in the ground where tunnels had been started and abandonded due to cave in or whatever, the location of the old stamp mill on the creek, etc. Everytime we got down to the creek bed I "hand panned" for a minute and there was always quite a bit of interesting color in the sand.
I also kept my eyes open on the geological formations around the property, and found quite a few outcroppings of old rotten quartz that appear promising for gold bearing rock. This site has a lot of potential for a hobbyist, and I plan to spend a good bit of time there this summer working the property. The only thing the owner asked is that I respect his guests, and that will be easy to do considering most of the prospecting places will be out of view of his guests.
Anyway, any of you gold prospectors close enough to north Georgia who wants a place to go play, give me a shout. I've got full permission to prospect all 13 acres of this land, which in the past has been a high gold bearing property. I'm sure it's going to be relegated to minimal recovery now due to the noise restrictions and the fact that it's been heavily mined in the past, but who knows what can be found with modern technology. Load up your manual dredges and sluices, your gold detectors and dowsers, and come visit me in north Georgia. We can find some gold together, and the best thing is you can rent a cabin right there on the property.
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« Last Edit: March 07, 2010, 11:39:00 pm by bigwater »
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Anybody who says "it can't be done" will usually be interrupted by somebody who is already doing it.
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