What do you think of when you hear the term “gold rush”? The 1849 California Gold Rush? As most people do, when I think of the term “gold rush,” it conjures up images of the West! Images of cowboys and crusty old miners ruthlessly and savagely staking their claim. Immigrants arriving by boat, people on foot, on horseback, and in covered wagons are gathering across the United States to rape and pillage the lands newly acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848...in California. But let me tell you about a gold rush of another kind, in another place, even more significant. It was the first documented discovery of gold in the United States! Fifty years earlier… in North Carolina! In 1799, 12-year-old Conrad Reed found a large, shiny rock in Little Meadow Creek on his family's farm in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Conrad took it home, but the Reed family had no idea what it was and used it as a bulky doorstop. Thinking it must be some kind of metal, John Reed, Conrad's father, took it to Concord, North Carolina for a silversmith to examine. The goldsmith could not identify it as gold. John Reed took him home. Three years later, in 1802, he took the rock to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where a jeweler immediately recognized it for what it was. The jeweler asked if he could cast it in a bar for him, John agreed. When John returned to the jeweler, he had a brick of gold measuring six to eight inches long. It's hard to believe, but John Reed had no idea of ​​the value of metals. The jeweler asked him what he wanted in return and John thought a week's wages would be fair, so he sold it to the jeweler for $3.50. Rumor has it that John bought a calico dress for his wife and coffee beans with her...... middle of paper ......nc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4374( Lewis, 2006) (cited in text) Tar Heel Junior Historian 45, no. 2 (Spring 2006) copyright North Carolina History Museum. Gold Foundation of North Carolina - http://www.ncgold.org/Mint Museum of Charlotte – personal tour -Personal tour. (nd). Retrieved from http://www.mintmuseum.org/The North Carolina Gold RushFirst in the Nation - Boitnott, DW (nd). "North Carolina Gold Rush First in Nation". Retrieved from http://dboitnott.home.mindspring.com/Articles/nc_gold_rush.htmlHistory Chanel – California Gold Rush http://www.history.com/topics/gold-rush-of-1849 Metamorphosed Mixed Terrane in the eastern Piedmont of North CarolinaMorton, JW (nd). Metamorphosed mixed terrane in the eastern piedmont of North Carolina. Retrieved from http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/14/7/551.abstract