In the second quarter of the nineteenth century the McIntyre Site served as a location of the Hipp Gold Mine.The first record of gold in the area was the discovery of a large nugget in 1790 in what is now Cabarrus County,Conrad Reeds toung son,while fishing,saw it shinning in a creek on his fathers farm and took it home.Not knowing what it was,the family used it as a doorstop for several years.In 1825 Samuel McComb made the first succesful attempt to follow a vein of Gold,located on his farm just to the south of Charlotte.Soon thereafter prospectors poured into the Piedmont,thereby creating the first gold rush in the United States.Small mines,consisting of surface trenches on hillsides above the streams,dotted the landscape,Stuart Schwartz has confirmed that the McIntyre site contains many of trenches of the Hipp Gold Mine.Consequently,it is reasonable to assume that archeological data associated with the nineteenth-century gold mining operations is present on the property.This information underscores the local historic significance of the McIntyre Site.
Notes...
I will continue to do more research on this topic and ad it as I find out more information.