Really a beautiful Place for it. The finding rocks site has some nice native mineral sites to go. The times I have gone it was tough because of the short time we had there. I built my own sifter box to be able to hit the natural free sites. But like I said just having a little time we mainly hit the commercial "mines". In the Franklin area they had 2 natural "mines". that I could find. And those are ones you are only work tailings.
One of these days I want to do a rv road trip and make a loop through Arkansas across to NC down to Florida and back to Texas.
This year we made a trip to Arkansas to the Crater of diamonds and a quartz crystal mine. Didn't get much at the crater of diamonds but a few very small diamond chips. At the crystal mine it was a pit mine and you could go through the tailings or walk around and try to spot something in areas that hadn't been dug.
BTW on the gold panning I've only hit the gold mine north of Thermal city. A normal tourist trap but it was fun.They have a yearly deal where everyone is setup with equipment and all the gold is put together then split up. You don't get much gold but like I said it was fun. Last time we were there since everyone is looking for gold they tend to miss the minerals. Found a couple 1 inch round NC natural garnets. Really nice specimens.
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