Image Credit: Matt Williams

Year Erected: 1988

Marker Text: Cherokee County, located along Georgia’s gold belt, figured prominently in the gold rush of the 1830s and 40s. Several mines operated along roughly a five-mile area near the Etowah River in the northeastern part of the county, including the Franklin-Creighton, Sandow, and Latham Mines. More than 30 other small placer mines extended southwesterly across the county and included the Sixes Mine, which may have been worked earlier by the Cherokees. During the Civil War, most gold mining operations in the county either slowed or ceased. The most successful, and the most sophisticated, the Franklin-Creighton, continued operations until 1909, when a shaft collapsed, and the mine was flooded.

Re-erected in 2021 by the Georgia Historical Society