Long before the first settlers arrived here in 1818, this area attracted explorers with hints of mineral wealth, especially gold, silver, and copper. Interest in Macon County's gemstones grew after a farmer uncovered unusual rocks while plowing in 1867, and a local scholar identified them as corundum, leading to commercial mining at Corundum Hill about 1871. During this period, a red corundum crystal, or ruby, was taken from Caler Creek, a gem-rich tributary of Cowee Creek. In 1895, the American Prospecting and Mining Company and Tiffany's of New York began actively searching for the source of Cowee's rubies, which were thought to rival those of Burma, but no mother lode was found and interest in large-scale gemstone mining faded. A book published in 1905 helped set the stage for a second wave of gem mining in Macon County, as people came and paid farmers to mine on their land. In the early fifties, Frank Wykle became the first to open a mine like those here today, and local reporter John P. Brady made the mines famous in the mid-1960s. In 1974, the Gem & Mineral Society of Franklin established the Franklin Gem & Mineral Museum in the nineteenth century jailhouse, where prized exhibits include a forty-nine-pound corundum crystal from the old Corundum Hill mine.