“Got one!”

An elderly lady in a straw hat and plaid dress holds up a four-inch-long set of tweezers with a piece of gravel caught tightly in its grip. I shift from my cushion and lean over, craning for a closer look. Held up to the sun, the bright red stone sparkles—a ruby. It’s a keeper! Smiling, she drops the stone into a film canister and closes the lid. She’s been coming to the Cowee Valley for years, panning through bucket after bucket of rich clay soil for some of North Carolina’s most elusive crystalline treasures.

My husband and I are visiting the Cherokee Mine after a friend confided that it was “one of the best” of the little mines that line the roads outside of Franklin. Being a mineral collector, I’m aware that most of these operations are just for fun, filling buckets with local dirt and enriching them with sapphires, rubies, emerald, quartz, and plenty of other colorful stones from all over the world. Not that it’s a bad thing, since folks visiting these mines contentedly spend hours sifting through their buckets, and they’re guaranteed to come away with a prize. But several of the local mines pride themselves on giving you nothing but native dirt with native rocks in it. If you’re lucky enough to uncover a gemstone, you can be sure it’s a North Carolina original!

We started off with a visit to Mason’s Ruby and Sapphire Mine along Upper Burningtown Road, where they let you dig your own dirt. Proprietor Pete Civitello greeted us warmly, inviting us to take a look around the rock shop while he attended to other customers. He then steered us to the tools and buckets, and pointed out where other folks had been digging with some success. “They’ve been finding lilac sapphires there these past few weeks." Excited by the prospect, we crossed the bridge over the creek and climbed the slippery mountainside, staking out an area and filling our buckets with moist earth.

Back at the sluice, Pete walked us through the proper way to screen the mud, showing us that the heavier sapphires could be tapped away from the lighter micas and quartz once the gravel was clean. It took a little practice, but we got excited as we began to see the tiny lilac hexagons in the screen. Little sparkling crystals of garnet looked like pieces of clear red glass.

Pete then dug up a shovel full of dirt from under the adjoining sluice and dumped it into my husband’s screen. Within a few minutes, several small sapphires showed up in the washed gravel. Pete shook his head. “It’s amazing how many people don’t catch all the gemstones in their screens. They just chuck the gravel on the ground.” He pointed down to the end of the sluice, where the flow of water cascaded down into a dark pool.  “And you should see how many I’ve pulled out of the pond!”  

The fellow next to us had come from a town near Asheville to spend the day sluicing gravel. He was a regular, and enjoyed this mine immensely. “I always find something here to take home.”

People came and went as we repeated the process time and again: cross the bridge, climb the mountain, dig up dirt, drag the buckets back down to the sluice, wash the dirt, tap the gravel. During the eight hours we spent there, we found 39 little lilac sapphires and a handful of garnets. Two of the stones are big enough to cut and mount on rings!

“That’s a good take,” said Pete, “but you should’ve seen when some folks last season opened up a pipe of sapphires. I’d never seen so many stones come out of this mountain before. Hundreds at a time! But it only lasted a couple of weeks, and then the pipe tapped out.”

We told Pete about our own mineral collecting adventures and gave him a couple of nice crystals of franklinite from New Jersey. He responded in kind by giving us a beautiful piece of North Carolina ruby. He also mentioned that his friend Warren King digs around on nearby Chunky Gal Mountain in search of the “big” stuff. I later called Warren to find out about his adventures.

“You’d be amazed at the items you find there,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago, I dug up a 21 lb. white sapphire! And someone else just found a 1.5 lb. pink sapphire!” Warren has ten years of experience exploring the mountains around Franklin. “I love to be out in the woods. I collect edible plants and orchids, and I really like digging for rubies and sapphires.” Warren can be contacted through Mason’s Ruby & Sapphire Mine to set up personally guided field trips.

Over dinner in Franklin, we made our plans for the next day—a visit to the Cherokee Mine. Effie McCracken runs it, and she’s got a whole cast of regular customers who come down each season to pan through her dirt, which is dug off a hillside on the property and put into small white buckets. At the office, she showed us samples of the gemstones found here, which include blue sapphires, red rubies, garnets, moonstone, and sillmanite. We paid the fee, grabbed two buckets, and found an open slot on the bench along the sluice.

I quickly became distracted by the variety of colorful quartz crystals popping out of the washed gravel. It was hard to judge what to keep and what to dump. Eventually I spotted my first sapphire. Success! More common were pieces of sillmanite, which look a lot like miniature pieces of petrified wood. The other visitors, primarily retirees, moved at lightning speed. In the time it took us to wash and pick through two buckets, they’d go through five. They carried their own umbrellas and seat cushions (which you can rent from Effie, but we could only spend a couple of hours here, so we didn’t), and had loupes (jeweler’s magnifying glasses) and long thin tweezers. They were obviously seasoned pros at sluicing. One couple showed us a rough sapphire more than an inch across. “We found it right here, on our last trip!” the lady said. “I’m going to turn it into a pin.”

While we were tempted to check out Jacobs Mine on our way out of the valley, our schedule didn’t permit it. The mine changed hands a couple of years ago, and the new owners Arthur and Connie Biggers decided to keep it just plain local dirt. According to visitors Bob and Shirley Brudecki of Rochester, New York, the Biggers screen out the larger “junk” stones before putting their buckets out for visitors, and they cover them so the dirt doesn’t turn to mud after a rain. The Brudeckis claimed the Jacobs Mine has excellent material. “We have had a dozen rubies (from Jacobs) cut that finished at 25 to 65 points and are clear and pigeon blood in color. They truly are equal in quality to stones from Burma. We saw one lady pull out a nine carat ruby, and know a man who found a twenty carat stone. The sapphire we found ranges from pink to lavender and blue. The blues are absolutely beautiful although they are small.”

We also passed the Jones Mine, where Ed and Sandi Chmelovsky, friends of ours from our local rock club, had found an excellent gemstone years ago. “I was doing metal sculpture at the time, and was looking for rocks that would serve as good bases,” said Ed. “We wandered along the creek, and there in the cattails— a sapphire!” Thirty carats, to be exact, and stunning in a setting that Sandi wears on her hand.  

At the Sheffield Mine, in the same long valley along Ruby Mine Road as the Jones, Jacobs, and Cherokee mines, the owners dig dirt from a hill on their property to fill their buckets. Dark red rubies, glassy red garnets, and blue sapphires are found on site.

So what about the enriched mines?

While I prefer finding local material myself, I’ve met a lot of people who head for the Cowee Valley just to look for gemstones, and they visit at least one of the many enriched mines. More than any other reason, they want to guarantee themselves something to bring home for their lapidary hobby, something big enough to cut and facet for jewelry. There are no promises that the native dirt will hold a prize, but when you spend $25 on a sapphire bucket, you know you’ll find something worth cutting! The Chmelovskys frequented the Jones Mine for that reason—their sapphire discovery was a lucky and unexpected find. Another friend from Pittsburgh, Frank Markert, used to frequent the Cowee Valley when he lived in southern Virginia. “I made my first trip there over twenty years ago. I never minded the enriched mines as long as they didn’t remove the native material. I got some really nice rubies from India that way!”

And tourism brings plenty of folks to Franklin. Some are there for the excellent hiking trails, others to see the waterfalls. Some fish in the beautiful mountain streams, others follow the scenic drives along US 64. Not all these folks are rockhounds or lapidary enthusiasts. They just stop in on the roadside mines at a whim, looking for a bit of fun and fortune. After all, recreational gem mining is just that—recreation!

WHERE TO FIND YOUR TREASURES

NATIVE MINES
Cherokee Mine, Ruby Mine Rd, Franklin NC 28734.  
Open May-Oct. Umbrellas, cushions, and snacks available.

Jacobs Ruby Mine, 269 Deforest Lane, Franklin NC 28734.
Open May 1-Oct 31, 9 AM - 5 PM; closed Sundays. Umbrellas available.

Mason’s Ruby & Sapphire Mine, 6961 Upper Burnington Rd, Franklin NC 28734.
Open Apr 1-Oct 31, 9 AM - 5 PM. Shaded flume available. You must dig your own dirt.

Sheffield Mine, 385 Sheffield Farms Rd., Franklin NC 28734.
Open Apr 1-Oct 31, 9 AM - 5 PM. Partially shaded. Picnic tables, snacks available. An enriched section available for your kids.

ENRICHED MINES
Cowee Mountain Ruby Mine, US 441 north of Franklin.
Open all year, starting at 9 AM. 150’ covered flume.

Gem City Mine, US 441 north of Franklin.
Open May 15-Oct 15. Sheltered flume.

Gold City Gem Mine, 9410 Sylva Hwy, Franklin NC 28734.
Open all year, starting at 9 AM. Covered flume adapted for the handicapped. Chairlift to observation deck overlooking four states; antique shop; jewelry store.

Jackson Hole, 9770 Highlands Rd, Highlands NC.
Open all year, 10 AM - 5 PM. On scenic US 64, above Cullasaja Falls. Covered sluice, snack bar, and gift shop.

Jones Ruby Mine, 426 Lloyd Tallent Rd.
Native and other North Carolina stones. Snacks and shelter available.

Mason Mountain Rhodolite and Ruby Mine, 5315 Bryson City Rd, Franklin NC 28734.
Open Apr 15-Nov 1, 8 AM - 5 PM. Cowee Valley Gift Shop, shaded flume, snack bar.  

Moonstone Gem Mine, 8312 Old Burningtown Rd. Franklin NC 28734.
Open Apr-Oct, 8 AM-8 PM.

Rocky Face Gem Mine, 30 Sanderstown Rd. Franklin NC 28734.
Open Apr 1-Oct 31, 8 AM-5 PM. Covered flume.

Rose Creek Mine & Campground, 115 Terrace Ridge Dr. Franklin NC 28734.
Open Apr 1-Oct 31, 8 AM - 5 PM. Although they’re listed by the Chamber of Commerce under “enriched” mines, they also offer “dig your own” native dirt on their grounds. The campground includes full hookups, showers, playground, laundry, tent sites, and a catch-out pond filled with rainbow trout.

The Old Cardinal Mine, 71 Rockhaven Dr. Franklin NC 28734.
Closed in Feb. Open 8 AM - 5 PM; closed Sundays. Shaded flume, concession stand.
                                       
This article originally appeared in Blue Ridge Country in 2000
Reprint rights available