Rockhounding in Graham County, NC: 5 USGS Mineral Sites (2026)

Check access before you go. Most sites listed here are old mines, quarries or prospects, and many are on private land or active mining claims. Get the landowner's permission, check the rules of the agency that manages any public land, and never enter mine workings. Locations are approximate.

Sketch map

Past ProducerProducerProspectOccurrenceStatus unknown

4 paw pins, one per site. Hover or tap a pin for the site name. 1 site(s) with USGS coordinates outside the outline are not pinned. County outline: US Census Bureau cartographic boundary file (2023). Locations approximate.

Woof’s favorite find

Kitchen Prospect

We picked it because its USGS record mentions 2 of the minerals on our cards and 2 of our card minerals overall. No other named site here scores as high on both counts. USGS lists it as occurrence for Copper. Minerals mentioned: Pyrite, Copper. Approx. location 35.416, -83.917. USGS record.

Ask first: a USGS record doesn’t mean you can visit. Find out who owns the land and get permission before collecting.

Field cards: what kind of sites?

Occurrence

The mineral was noted here, without development.

Status terms come from USGS MRDS records.

Mineral cards

Pyrite
Mohs 6–6.5. Brassy “fool’s gold,” often cubic. Mindat
2 sites
Copper
Mohs 2.5–3. Native copper is soft and turns green as it weathers. Mindat
2 sites

Counts are sites whose USGS record mentions the mineral or commodity. Hardness from Mindat.

Minerals recorded here

Pyrite 2Limonite 1Chalcopyrite 1Pyrrhotite 1

Commodities

Iron 4Copper 1

Sites

Site	Commodity	Minerals recorded	Status	Approx. location
Kitchen Prospect	Copper	Chalcopyrite, Pyrite	Occurrence	35.416, -83.917
Unnamed Limonite Occurrence	Iron	Limonite	Occurrence	35.179, -83.545
Whiting Prospect	Iron	Pyrite, Pyrrhotite	Occurrence	35.437, -83.852
Kitchen Prospect	Iron	—	Occurrence	35.415, -83.913
Whiting Prospect	Iron	—	Occurrence	35.437, -83.850

Nearby counties

Cherokee County · Swain County · Clay County · Macon County · Jackson County

North Carolina mineral guides

Back to all North Carolina counties.

Is It Legal to Collect Rocks on Public Land? BLM, Forest Service and National Park Rules

How we built this page: we counted named sites in the USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) for this area, left out sand, gravel, crushed stone, clay pits and unnamed sites, grouped them by Census county, and linked every site to its USGS record. We did not visit these sites, and MRDS does not tell you who owns the land or whether collecting is allowed.

Source: USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS). USGS ceased systematic updates to MRDS around 2011, so status and details may be out of date. Each site links to its USGS record.

Updated October 2026

Rockhounding in Graham County, North Carolina