Doc McCoy runs Doc's Gem Mine in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where visitors dig through buckets of dirt to find gemstones like unakite and smoky quartz. The family mine, founded five years ago, is the state's only education-backed gem mining experience. Guests can also cut stones and make jewelry from their finds.
Check this out. It looks like a diamond, but it's really quartz, and they found it here at Doc's Gem Mine.
Look at that one, Noah.
Doc McCoy runs the gem mine located on 321 in Blowing Rock.
This is a family-owned business we started 5 years ago in May. We're the only education-based gem mine in the entire state. We're actually backed by the North Carolina Board of Education.
Don't tell the kids it's educational. Looks like they're having way too much fun.
Ooh, I found my first rock. I love to do this. Wait, where'd you go? Oh, hi! Where'd you go? Where'd you go? Where'd you go? Oh, there.
What we do is get 1,000 pounds of dirt from each mine and we just dump it all right here in a hole together and shovel that into buckets. People go through the buckets, find stuff, and we teach them about what they find.
We got some unakite here and some smoky quartz.
So we cut your gemstone, we actually make jewelry out of the gemstone. The way that works is you find it, we cut it, you see what it looks like as a finished product, then you decide what, what you want to do with it, how you want to set it.
You can have fun, learn something, and take home a beautiful rock. I'm Jodi Suri reporting for High Country Press.
