Free gold and other family fun this weekend during Ohio Gold Rush Days in Bellville

There's a gold rush in North Central Ohio and families are invited to stake their claims this weekend, for free.

Prospecting takes place from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at the Swank Claim, 1099 Cutnaw Road in Bellville.

The event — Ohio Gold Rush Days — is hosted by the Buckeye Chapter of the Gold Prospectors Association of America.

"We're going to be teaching kids," said Shawn Woerlein, the chapter's secretary. "We'll have booths set up to train people how to pan for gold."

Woerlein grew up in Galion and has been studying the region's gold for nearly two decades.

During the Gold Rush Days, he will pass that information on to future prospectors.

Rich history of gold discoveries in Richland County

The gold in Richland County is not native to the region. It was transported to the Buckeye State millennia ago by glaciers that crept their way through Canada as they melted.

The ice would grasp hold of gold nuggets, then grind the gold into powder as it inched south.

"It would bring that gold down," Woerlein said. "That gold, through erosion, concentrated into rivers. That's what we prospect today."

Gold was first discovered in southern Richland County by European descendants in the 1800s.

Prospectors back then set up a full-time operation in hopes of striking it rich along the Clearfork River, near what are now the towns of Butler and Bellville.

"They did not find enough gold to succeed very long," Woerlein said. "They ended up folding and closing up."

Bellville claim overseen by the Gold Prospectors Association of America

More than a century later, another gold rush hit the area in the 1990s.

"Two gentlemen actually found a piece of quartz that looked like a potato," Woerlein explained. "It had a stringer of gold running through it."

The men chose to break the rock in half, splitting their treasure.

"They ended up, between the two of them, with about $700 worth of gold," Woerlein said. "Back then, gold wasn’t going for that much. That specimen would have actually sold today for upwards of $50,000."

Once again, everyone involved realized there wasn't enough gold to change anyone's lives, so the landowners leased the property to the Gold Prospectors Association of America.

The Buckeye Chapter of the Gold Prospectors Association of America was started in 1996.

'They can put their gold in a vial and take it home'

Ohio Gold Rush Days is billed as offering something for guests of all ages and interest levels.

The event will feature kids games, duck races and various gold-related activities.

"We do what's called common digs, where the public is welcome to join at no cost," Woerlein said. "Basically, it's a learning process."

The event facilitators will set up the equipment and teach everyone what to look for, how to run the equipment and how to process the materials.

"At the end, the concentrates that are left over in the machine, we do an even split of those among everybody that participates," Woerlein said. "They can either take that home with them, or we will put that in a gold pan and show them how to pan it down and pull their gold out of that. They can put their gold in a vial and take it home."

Food trucks will be on hand, offering snacks and drinks for purchase.

Vendors will be selling items that will help prospectors get started panning for gold on their own claims at home.

'That vein could be worth trillions of dollars'

Attendees of the Ohio Gold Rush Days get the chance to take home a few flakes of free gold, but nobody has ever struck it wealthy from finding gold in Richland County.

"Glacier gold has been ground down by the sheer weight of the ice," Woerlein said.

There's a good chance there are at least a few tiny particles of similar gold in many streams and fields throughout North Central Ohio.

"Occasionally, people will get a picker, which is something that's big enough to pick up with your fingers," Woerlein said.

Some unfortunate prospectors may also find pyrite, or fool's gold. Pyrite looks like gold in the light, but dark in the shade.

"You will always find black sand where you find gold, but you will not always find gold where you find black sand," Woerlein said.

Geologists have discovered that all of the gold that was transported to Ohio ages ago came from the same place in prehistoric Canada.

"They were never able to find that vein in Canada," Woerlein said. "They don't know exactly where it came from. However, they estimate that vein could be worth trillions of dollars."

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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Dig free gold in Bellville this weekend during Ohio Gold Rush Days