In 1827 Benjamin Haile (1768-1842) found gold here while panning in the streams on his plantation, and after he found gold ore as well, he established a mining operation. By 1837 the Haile Gold Mine included a 5-stamp mill, whose steel stamps or pestles crushed ore into dust from which gold was extracted, and Haile leased small plots to entrepreneurs who used slave labor to mine gold. The mine did not become successful until the 1880s, when its owners hired Adolf Thies (1832-1917), a German mining engineer who perfected a new extraction process. A 60-stamp mill processed 100 tons a day and produced more gold than any mine east of the Mississippi. After a deadly boiler explosion in 1908, the mine closed in 1912, though it operated briefly during World Wars I and II and the 1990s.