Dahlonega Gold Museum (Old Lumpkin County Courthouse)
Built in 1836 to settle the flood of claim disputes from America's first major gold rush, this brick courthouse — fired from local clay laced with trace gold — is the oldest standing courthouse in Georgia and served Lumpkin County until 1965 before becoming the Dahlonega Gold Museum. Staff and visitors have long reported a tall figure in a hooded robe, nicknamed Tommy, glimpsed in the upper windows and along the balcony after hours. He is blamed for knocking that echoes inside the old walls and for setting off the small model stamp press, which lets out a sudden, startling pound entirely on its own. Other accounts from candlelit museum tours describe a recurring female apparition, cold spots, and disembodied voices drifting through the former courtroom. Whether echoes of the prospectors who once crowded its docket or something older, the building remains one of the gold-rush town's most enduringly haunted landmarks.
📍 1 Public Square, Dahlonega, GA 30533, Dahlonega, GA · Get directions