Alabama Gold: A History of the South's Last Mother Lode

by Peggy Jackson Walls

Overview

Gold rushes in Cleburne and Tallapoosa Counties attracted thousands of miners years before California's famous strike. In 1936, production at the Hog Mountain mine caused Alabama to be recognized as the top producer in the Appalachian states. In Hog Mountain's heyday, a local German settler discovered the precious metal while digging a wine cellar. In Log Pit, unscrupulous speculators "shot" ore into rock crevices and "salted" nuggets on land to enhance its sale value. A Cleburne County miner cleaned over eleven pounds of gold and was killed in a "free fight" all in one day. Join author Peggy Jackson Walls as she traces a century of gold mining in Alabama.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439656617
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	07/11/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Peggy Jackson Walls earned her BS degree in secondary education at Auburn University in Montgomery and her MA in liberal arts, with a minor in Southern history, at Auburn University. She has taught at Auburn University and the University of Phoenix online, among others. Her article "Gold Mining at Hog Mining in the 1930s" was published by Alabama Review in 1984. She co-authored Alexander City: Images of America and is published in the 2012 Chinaberries & Crows anthology.

Table of Contents

Preface 9

Acknowledgements 13

Introduction 15

Part I The Old Southwest: America's First Gold Rushes

1 "Alabama Fever" 25

2 Tallapoosa County's Gold Mining Districts: Devil's Backbone, Fagle Greek, Goldville and Hog Mountain 35

3 "It's Good to Be Shifty in a New Country" 47

4 Cotton Boom and Bust, Lost Confederate Gold. New" Interest in Gold Mining 57

5 Tallapoosa County: "Gold Country" 71

6 Hillabee Gold Mining Company (1890-1916) 81

Part II Surviving The Depression: "Grinding Stone into Bread"

7 The Hog Mountain Mining and Milling Company: 1933-1937 91

8 Life in a Gold Mining Community 123

9 Notable People and Events 135

10 From the Mine to the Mill: J.P. Mooney 157

Appendix: An Incomplete List of Hog Mountain Gold Miners 161

Notes 163

Bibliography 167

Index 171

About the Author 175

Editorial Reviews

"The really appealing factor in this book is the uniqueness of its content, supplementing any existing library on rockets of the 1960s and adding especially useful information. The author has done a magnificent job condensing a lot of information in the expanded captions and that makes it especially useful." Space Flight Magazine

Walls began her research with the miners of the 1930s, many of who were connected to her family. The second half of Alabama Gold is full of interviews in which these miners tell their stories. Walls felt that sharing the harsh realities of life in this little-known period of Alabama history was a job that was meant for her. Lake Martin Living

Walls' interest in Hog Mountain and in gold mining in Tallapoosa County has resulted in "Alabama Gold: A History of the South's Last Mother Load," a 175-page book release earlier this month by The History Press. The book spans a century of gold mining in Alabama, the last southern Piedmont state in which gold was discovered. alexcityoutlook.com

From the Publisher