Early Gold Mining

The gold lay on Cherokee land, and Europeans first learned of it from the Cherokee. Two men began mining there illegally in 1827, and a fort named Armistead was built at Meroney's Stand to repel prospectors; it later became a waypoint in the removal of the Cherokee in 1838. The Coker Creek field yielded about 9,000 troy ounces, nearly all of Tennessee's historic gold output, worked with light machinery. The Civil War interrupted the digging, which went on until 1911.

What the plaque says

Early Gold Mining Placer gold was discovered along Coker Creek in 1831. For a time there was feverish digging; $80,000 of Coker Creek gold was mined between 1831 and 1854. Since then there has been sporadic mining here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ocoee Whitewater Center — 16 mi
  The Forest Service site on the Ocoee River in Cherokee National Forest that hosted the 1996 Olympic canoe slalom, on a river that TVA dams and releases by schedule.
• Sequoyah Birthplace Museum — 23 mi
  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' museum on Tellico Lake, near the town where Sequoyah was born, telling how he built the Cherokee syllabary and what the Tellico Dam drowned.
• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 23 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.

More markers nearby

• Fort Loudoun Massacre — 7.5 mi
• Boyhood Home of Ray H. Jenkins — 7.5 mi
• Tellico Blockhouse — 12 mi
• Old Federal Road — 15 mi