Location: North Washington at West 6th Street in Rutherfordton
County: Rutherford
Original Date Cast: 1941
From about 1803 until California’s gold strikes of 1848, North Carolina led the nation in gold production. Gold was a key industry in the state, with about fifty mines operating by the 1830s. Getting better prices from brokers and commercial operations, North Carolinians sent relatively little gold to the United States Mint. An 1834 congressional investigation of the gold industry concluded that only about one third of North Carolina’s gold went to the mint, while “the other two-thirds has been exported, or consumed in the arts, and a part is circulating under private stamps in at least two of the States in which gold is found.”
Indeed, gold in North Carolina was being sent to a private mint within its borders. Christopher Bechtler, his son Augustus, and a nephew, also Christopher Bechtler, moved to Rutherford County, North Carolina, in 1830. The elder Bechtler first opened a jewelry shop in Rutherfordton but soon saw that the lack of currency in western North Carolina was stifling the regional economy. Experienced metalworkers, the Bechtlers sought to remedy the lack of specie. They developed dies, built a press, and by July 1831 were striking $2.50 (quarter-eagle) and $5.00 (half-eagle) coins in a shop on Hollands Creek about 3 ½ miles north of Rutherfordton. The following year the Bechtler mint began to strike the first gold $1.00 United States coins. Although not a government office, the mint produced coins from gold procured, analyzed, and purified by the Bechtlers. Private mints met with varied success, based on the quality of specie that they generated and on the public’s perception of the purity of the gold.
The elder Christopher Bechtler died in 1842 but operation of the mint was carried on by Augustus, and later by a nephew, Christopher. It was the younger Christopher Bechtler who is believed to have moved the minting business to Rutherfordton. Contemporary and modern examinations of Bechtler coins have shown that the coins were not worth their face value, with the coins that were minted by Augustus during the middle years being the purest. Despite the deficiencies, the Bechtler mint served the western piedmont region well, providing an outlet for miners and specie for the local economy. The Bechtler Mint ceased operations around 1849, after having struck about $2.25 million in coins.
References:
Rodney Barfield and Keith Strawn, The Bechtlers and Their Coinage (1980)
Clarence Griffin, The Bechtlers and Their Coinage and Gold Mining in North Carolina, 1814-1830 (1929)
Thomas Featherstonhaugh, A Private Mint in North Carolina (1906)
Richard F. Knapp and Robert M. Topkins, eds., Gold in History, Geology, and Culture: Collected Essays (2001)
Flethcher Melvin Green, “Gold Mining: A Forgotten Industry of Ante-Bellum North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review (April 1937): 135-155
William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006)