Gold Hill, NC

Gold Hill is an unincorporated Rowan County CDP near the Yadkin River, U.S. 52, and the Cabarrus County line. Gold was found here in 1824, and serious mining began in the 1840s. The Barnhardt shaft, built in 1842, was the first vertical mine shaft east of the Mississippi, and it reached over 400 feet. The later village grew beside the mining district, with a depot, hotel, school, stores, homes, and churches along the nearby railroad. Gold Hill Mines Historic Park now gathers the old jail, powder house, ore-mill remains, trails, and village shops into one historic landscape.