In the 1820s, thousands of fortune seekers came to these foothills in a North Carolina Gold Rush, drawn by gold in the rivers. Among them was German jeweler Christopher Bechtler, who bought this land in 1830 and began an unsuccessful search for gold. In 1831, urged by other miners to create a market for raw gold, he opened a private mint here. By 1837, Bechtler had minted $2.4 million in coins, including the first $1 gold coin in the U.S., and his successful mint gave southern miners an alternative to the distant U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. The Bechtler Mint site became the western anchor of North Carolina's golden crescent, extending east to the Reed Gold Mine near Charlotte. After Bechtler's death in 1842, the land passed through many hands, at one point selling for more than $1 million and at another for less than $100, while farmers, loggers, and curio-seekers disturbed the soil and erased many features. The site was not protected until 1990, and in 1997 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of how Christopher Bechtler's gold-working skills transformed the economic life of the South.