After the Gold Rush

Most of the surface gold is depleted by 1838. About this time a gradual decrease of the population in the valley begins. In 1849 almost all the miners head west when word of another strike, in the gold fields of California, reaches Georgia. The population in the western end of the Sautee-Nacoochee Valley returns to what it had been in the days before the gold rush.

Hydraulic mining begins in 1858, thanks to J. R. Dean. This form of placer mining is environmentally devastating to the land. To the trained eye, evidence of this activity is still visible in the area, most notably in the "Dean Cut."

Gold is mined in the north end of the Sautee-Nacoochee Valley well into the 20th century by various methods, although, by that time, hydraulic mining had been outlawed in Georgia.

Captain Nichols Era

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