The first substantiated gold find in America was in 1799 by young Conrad Reed while playing in Little Meadow Creek, located on the Reed farm in southeastern Cabarrus County.

According to research, Conrad's find was a gold chunk approximately the size of a shoe and weighing seventeen pounds.

His father John Reed had taken the nugget into Concord to a silversmith, who had informed Reed that the rock did not have any value.

The elder Reed had returned home with it, holding it for three years until a trip in 1802 to Fayetteville, where he sells the "nugget" to a jeweler for $3.50.

Over time John Reed learns that the jeweler had sold the large nugget for several thousand dollars.

Reed returns to Fayetteville insisting on more just compensation.

This discovery and news of the sale spurs the beginning of gold mining in the area.