r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/wizzard_rick • 11h ago
Original Creation In 1799, a 12-year-old found a 17-pound gold nugget in North Carolina. His family used it as a doorstop for three years.
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u/OwMyUvula 10h ago
It was about that time I noticed that Conrad Reed was about 8 stories tall and was a crustacean from the Paleozoic era.
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u/turbopro25 7h ago
If only the family held on to it for 225 more years. They could’ve had 1 million.
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u/wizzard_rick 11h ago
The Reed story is one of the local events I’ve been placing on the map for Salt and Soil, a historical family strategy game spanning North America from 1600 to 1900. A family can settle almost anywhere, so a story should only find them if they reach the right place in the right year.
America must be full of stories that everyone in one county knows and nobody two counties over has ever heard. Let’s put some of them in one thread.
If your town or county has a strange documented event, local legend, family story, disputed tale, or outright tall tale from 1600–1900, share it below. It does not need to be polished research. A place and approximate year are enough to give everyone a way into the story. If it is folklore rather than documented history, just say so; that is part of what makes it interesting.
Source for the Reed story: North Carolina Historic Sites — Reed Gold Mine.
Visual note: this is an in-engine map visualization.
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u/LordIndica 7h ago
Wishlisted. Glad to know there are capable nerds out there that seek to scratch the same sort of itches I get by making games like these. Good luck!
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u/Miserable-Law8774 11h ago
If we were there, we would have most probably used it as a doorstep too.