A touch of gold fever hit me last weekend while we were hiking through what was a massive gold-mining area more than a century ago in North Georgia’s White County.
We were walking along the cool, shady Martin’s Mine Trail that winds 2.1 miles through a lush hardwood forest in Smithgall Woods State Park near Helen. Such a serene, verdant environment today belies the feverish activity that was taking place there in the 1800s, when scores of miners were scouring away mountain slopes with pressurized water hoses to find flecks of gold.
Gold was first discovered there along Duke’s Creek in 1828, triggering a massive gold rush. Soon, the frantic quest spread across North Georgia as other deposits were discovered.
“It’s hard to imagine that this area was once a devastated landscape from mining,” said Johnna Tuttle, the park’s interpretive ranger, as we crossed a footbridge over now scenic Duke’s Creek and entered the splendid forest. I was hiking with her and a friend, Lloyd Summer, a history buff.
They explained that after 1850, when most of the easily retrieved gold was depleted, the pressurized water -- or hydraulic -- mining gave way to hard rock mining. Deep tunnels and shafts allowed gold-bearing ore to be gouged from underground and processed by crushing mills.
Regardless of the mining method, though, few trees were left standing from the onslaught. Life in creeks and streams was smothered under tons of debris. “The most intense devastation occurred from 1865 [to] 1935 when the creek bottomlands were a moonscape of mining debris,” a park brochure said.
Signs of the mining still abound along the trail -- a fascinating lesson in Georgia history.
Still visible, for instance, is a fine sand layer in the creek bottom, debris from an ore-crushing mill. Steep piles of mining debris (tailings) are all along the trail. Crisscrossing the trail are the remnants of deep ditches that brought in water for mining. A 60-foot-deep shaft also marks the entrance to a horizontal mining tunnel, where a tram car remains.
As we sauntered through the now peaceful, stately forest last weekend, I was amazed at nature’s ability to bounce back from such stark destruction.
Johnna said the forest has recovered because of high rainfall (some 60 inches per year), acid-adapted vegetation such as mountain laurel (mining debris tended to be acidic) and gentle slopes in the damaged areas. Some pits created by the mining are now ephemeral or temporary pools where frogs and salamanders breed. Duke's Creek is now the state's premier trout stream.
In the sky: Autumn begins at 5:05 a.m. Sept. 23. Autumn's first day is known as the autumnal equinox, when the sun rises almost due east and sets due west.
The moon will be last quarter on Sept. 20, said David Dundee, astronomer with Tellus Science Museum. Mercury is low in the east just before dawn. Venus is low in the west just after sunset. Mars is low in the east about three hours before sunrise. Jupiter rises out of the east a few hours after sunset and will appear near the moon the night of Sept. 23.
If You Go
Smithgall Woods State Park. 5,664-acre park located on Ga 75 Alternate, 3 miles west of Helen. Features five miles of hiking trails, small nature museum, picnic shelters and five guest cabins. Visitors Center: 61 Tsalaki Trail, Helen , GA 30545. Open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Gate opens at 7 a.m. Visitors must register at the visitors center since this is also a conservation park. $5 parking fee; additional fees may be required for special activities and to reserve facilities. 706-878-3087, georgiastateparks.org/smithgallwoods.
