There’s Gold in Them There Hills!

My husband and I attended a wedding at a resort in Dahlonega, Georgia, and stayed for a long weekend there. It turned out to be a great weekend for us. We had driven through Dahlonega many times, but had never stopped to do the tourist stuff.

The resort we stayed at wasn’t anything special, but that’s okay. The wedding at the resort was beautiful, and the reception was a bunch of fun.

The resort was sort of a rustic country lodge. It had some activities to do like horseback trail rides and carriage rides. We opted not to do any of those things because we wanted to explore the town of Dahlonega.

The downtown area of Dahlonega is a town square that goes around the Gold Museum building. Dahlonega is known for its history as a gold mining town. It sits up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and gold was discovered there. They have a museum dedicated to the gold mining up there.

Truthfully, we decided not to do that either because we really wanted to just walk around the town and see what there was to see. There were numerous antique shops in the downtown area. Of course, we tried to go through all of them. We love to look at all of the old items.

We had a lot of fun just walking around and visiting all of the shops and being tourists. It’s really a neat downtown area. Plenty of shade and benches. There are lots and lots of restaurants to choose from.

There’s a restaurant in Dahlonega that everyone talks about called The Smith House. I have never eaten there. In fact, I had never seen it until our trip. Many, many people have told me to eat at The Smith House in Dahlonega. If you like southern cooking, it’s the place for you.

Because Dahlonega is a gold mining town, they have gold mines that you can tour. That was the one thing we really wanted to while we were up there. We wanted to take a gold mine tour and pan for gold.

We found a gold mine called Consolidated Gold Mines that offered tours and panning for gold and gemstones. That’s where the real fun for us was.

The tour guide we had was quite knowledgeable. The stories he told were factual laced with a bit of humor. He lead us down, down, down a quarter mile into the gold mine. He showed us how the gold was mined a hundred years ago. Back then they mined the gold with hand tools and by candlelight. The mine was dark, and the work was loud.

The inside of the mine is solid rock. Hundreds of feet deep in the rock is where these men blasted with dynamite and worked with hand tools in very low light to glean the gold from the rocks.

Once the tour was done, and we climbed up, up, up a quarter of a mile out of the mine, we went into the area where we panned for gold. They taught us how to pan for gold just like the old prospectors used to do. 

I got 3 small pieces of gold, and my husband got 2 pieces. That was awesome! The pieces are so little that they aren’t worth anything but the memories, but I don’t care.

The other thing that we did is pan for gemstones. That was even more awesome! We got dozens of uncut gemstones. We got some large pieces of amethyst and even some ruby. They are uncut but the size of them is amazing. Once they are polished, jewelry can be made out of them. Or I can just keep them.

I also bought some loose gemstones the General Store. I was surprised that they weren’t that expensive.

Some people believe gemstones have unique powers. Citrine is supposed to bring you riches. Tiger’s eye is supposed to be for protection. So maybe I won’t use them for jewelry. I don’t know. Right now they are safe in a plastic baggie just waiting for me to decide. They are not really valuable, but they will be a reminder of the fun we had.

If you happen to get a chance to go up there for the day, you won’t regret it. I’m not sure I would recommend staying more than a day or two, but you can look through things on the internet and see for yourself. You might like some of the other activities available like kayaking and wine tastings. I would definitely recommend touring a mine. Who knows maybe you’ll strike gold!