Dahlonega Consolidated Gold Mine

Gold mining remains cover about ninety acres on a hillside and valley bottom northeast of Dahlonega, Georgia. The Dahlonega Consolidated Gold Mining Company began building here in 1899, consolidating ten known mining properties, and the mine opened on May 1, 1900. It was said to be the largest mining complex east of the Mississippi, with a stamp mill, chlorination plant, shaft houses, an assay laboratory and workshops. Chlorination was a process not previously used in Georgia. The company failed in 1906, and the property sold at a trustee's sale for $20,000 against a $175,000 debt. The site later generated electricity for the town until 1921. The stamp mill and chlorination plant were dismantled and sold locally. Surviving features include the corrugated-steel assay building, a fieldstone and brick flue chamber, a 66-foot smokestack, stamp mill foundations and partly collapsed tunnels. Historic photographs suggest many buried resources that have never been excavated.