Map - Cabarrus County, North Carolina (Cabarrus County)

Cabarrus County is a county located in the south-central part of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 225,804. The county seat is Concord, which was incorporated in 1803. Cabarrus County is included in the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The first substantiated gold find in America took place in Cabarrus County in 1799, when Conrad Reed discovered gold in Little Meadow Creek. The Reed Gold Mine (now a National Historic Landmark) was founded, and resulted in a gold rush to the area in the early 1800s. While some cotton plantations were established, most of the land was developed for subsistence farming. By 1860 the population consisted of about one-third enslaved African Americans, with few free people of color. Industrialization had started before the war with the introduction of textile mills to process the cotton. More mill development took place, especially after the railroad was constructed to the town. Coleman Manufacturing Company, started in 1897, is believed to be the first cotton mill in the nation to be built, owned and operated by African Americans. It was owned by Warren Clay Coleman from Concord, John C. Dancy (federal collector of customs), and seven partners primarily from Wilmington, North Carolina. Investors included Washington Duke and capitalists in other parts of the state. Textile manufacturing continued to be integral to the regional economy until the late 20th century. In 2015, the Coleman-Franklin-Cannon Mill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The county was formed on December 29, 1792, from Mecklenburg County. Located in the Piedmont, it was named after Stephen Cabarrus of Chowan County, speaker of the North Carolina House of Commons.

Catawba Indians were the primary inhabitants of the area until beginning about 1750, the county was settled mainly by immigrants: Germans on the eastern side and Scotch-Irish in the western area of the county. When it came time to choose a location for the county seat and county government, each ethnic group wanted the county seat located close to their populations and could not reach agreement on a site. Stephen Cabarrus wrote to the citizens pleading with them to come together in peace to choose a location for their county seat. A central area of the county was chosen in 1796 and aptly named Concord, a derivative of two French words "with" and "peace." Representative Paul Barringer introduced a bill into the state legislature to incorporate Concord; it passed on December 17, 1806. The town of Concord was begun on land owned by Samuel Huie and wife Jane Morrison Huie.

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 17 pounds. His father John Reed took the nugget into Concord to a silversmith, who informed Reed that the rock did not have any value. The elder Reed returned home with it, holding it for three years until a trip in 1802 to Fayetteville, where he sold the "nugget" to a jeweler for $3.50. Over time John Reed learned that the jeweler sold the large nugget for several thousand dollars. Reed returned to Fayetteville insisting on more just compensation. This discovery and news of the sale spurred the beginning of gold mining in the area.

John Reed, or Johannes Rieth as he is known in records of the Staatsarchiv at Marburg, Germany, was one of thousands of Hessian soldiers brought over by British troops to fight against rebellious colonists in the American Revolution. Reed deserted, as did many other Hessians. He traveled from Georgia to North Carolina, where he settled in an ethnic German community sometime around 1787 and began farming.

Reed first developed placer mining on his property, then underground mining, and became wealthy from the gold. His facility became known as Reed's Gold Mine. Large amounts of gold were being discovered at the Reed Gold Mine and in other mines in the United States; these mine owners began to use their gold to create currency. For the government to retain control of the production of currency and keep a stabilized economic structure, President Andrew Jackson signed into legislation the authorization to create branches of the US Mint. The Charlotte Mint was built to handle the gold coming from the rich gold veins of North Carolina, including Reed's.

The Reed Gold Mine was designated a National Historic Landmark, as it was the first gold mine in the country. Gold was mined in North Carolina into the early 20th century. Today visitors at the site can explore some of the mine's reconstructed tunnels.