Consolidated Gold Mine is located roughly an hour and 10 mins from Milton at 185 Consolidated Gold Mine Road, Dahlonega, GA 30533
It will look like you are turning into a Walmart parking lot, don’t worry, that is correct.
They are open 10-4 Mon-Fri 10-5 Weekends
When you park (free) the bathrooms are located outside the main entrance. They have a cozy log cabin feel to them. Then go in the main door and pay at the front desk when you walk in. I forgot to write down prices, but think it was $16 an adult and a little cheaper for a kid. This will also include a silver coin. This coin is you turn in to go pan for gold. They will give you a time for the roughly 40 min tour and a colored card per person. Listen for announcements for that color tour group.You can go and pay to just mine gold and skip the tour.
They have a huge great gift shop full of things my son loves and I had bought many of those items before and felt they were very reasonably priced. There is a penny press machine there with 4 different pennies at 51 cents each. They were very nice to exchange dollar bills for me to get correct change and made sure I got shiny pennies.
We had some time, so we went and watched the short video about panning for gold. We then each went and panned for gold. You shake the sand with water and then carefully empty out the water. There is a person there to ask if you need them to show you how. When you get to almost no sand, you take it to the experts and they will dig out your gold. My husband and son each had 3 flakes of gold, I got 1. They put it in a small test tube like container that will preserve it.
It was then time for our tour. We met in a courtyard and then you go watch about a 5 minute movie. We then went into the tunnel and they suggest you put on hard hats. This is the narrowest part of the tour when you walk in. You then go to the part where they found the gold many years ago and if you look up you can see the sky. Through the tour you see tools they use, a “huge hole with a little lake at the bottom, “and at one point they will turn off the lights so you can see what it use to look like in there with a “torch” like the real miners did.
It stays at 55 to 60 degrees underground so you may want to bring a jacket. They are very accommodating to chlosterphobic people and you can go back up at any time if you feel the need to. I will say it was wet and there are lots of steps. It goes 700 feet below ground but the tour only goes 150 feet below. Our tour guide was Josh and he was amazing! My son says he was the best tour guide ever and we have had many tours of places. Make sure to tip your guide if you like them.
When we finished the tour we went and paid $50 for a gem bucket. They also have a $30 and $100 one. You then take it and scoop some out into the “basket” and shake out the sand in the water. You get to keep all the gems you find. When you exit the guy will them go through your stones and tell you what each is. You can have them turn it into a necklace, ring or jewelry. The cheapest was $50.
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