The biggest Georgia producer of quartz and amethyst crystals, both in pounds and number of crystals, is probably the J. B. Ivey Farm in Northeast Georgia, in Warren County. This location began producing specimens around 1960 and continued in sporadic bursts until very recently. Mr. Ivey, who at the time of this writing is 78 years old, owns the property.

Mr. Ivey purchased the land with the aspirations of farming a cash crop such as corn or wheat, and also opening a horse stable. The horse stable proved to be easy enough, but farming proved to be very difficult in the particularly rocky soil. So much so, in fact, that Mr. Ivey had to enlist the aid of the county extension agent in determining just what could be grown in the rocky soil. The agent came out and walked the plowed field and picked up a number of oddly shaped and unusually colored stones. The agent being a learned man recognized these rocks to be crystals and amethyst no less! The agent then told Mr. Ivey that he needn’t worry about growing crops because he had amethyst on his land ( it should be noted that at that time period, circa 1960, amethyst was scarce and very valuable because the Brazilian deposits were yet to be discovered ). Mr. Ivey wasn’t sure what amethyst was so he asked the agent what he meant. The agent replied that amethyst was a semi-precious variety of quartz. Well, Mr. Ivey was confused for sure then (and slightly irritated) so he asked the agent “ What are you talking about man ? Quarts of milk or quarts of liquor?!!? “ The agent finally explained it all to him and suggested how he might start a pay to dig amethyst hole.

Back in the mid sixties to early seventies, rockhounding was a very popular hobby, and much more so than now. Additionally, several things of regional importance was happening during that time period. While the major interstate I-20 was being cut through nearby Thomson a vein of amethyst was encountered. Needless to say this was visited by quite a number of folks to the road builders dismay! Amethyst was also coming out of Charlie’s creek and being dug a hundred miles away in the famous Due West, South Carolina location. Soon there was a huge crowd of folks visiting Ivey Farm to dig the amethyst crystals. Mr. Ivey recounts how it was his habit to stand at the entrance gate and collect the entrance fee and put it in a paper grocery bag. On one very busy day, he had filled the bag up with money and sent his wife to go dump it on the bed and bring the bag back. Well, Mr. Ivey's wife took off straight away but tarried at the house, no doubt swapping favorite recipes or some such pleasantries with the visiting ladies. In the mean time, Mr. Ivey filled first one pocket then another with money. He said that before long his pockets were so full and stuffed with money spilling out, that he looked like a scarecrow that was stuffed with money instead of hay!

Life on the farm, as anywhere else, is not all sweetness and light but sometimes filled with tragedy. While not many folks have died in Georgia digging amethyst, at least one has, right here in Georgia. This is how it came to pass that the Angel of Death visited the amethyst hole:. Mr. Ivey had a regular farm tractor with a box scrape on the back. He would go in the hole and fill the contraption up with a load of dirt and drag it up top and spread it out in the field. A friend, Mr. Mock, was at the place helping that day and had went up top in anticipation of the box being emptied. He was watching Mr. Ivey down in the hole with the tractor, and saw him bump the wall of the trench with the tractors big back tires. The wall caved in and cascaded down like an avalanche. The downward flow and impetus violently threw the tractor on its side and threw Mr. Ivey off in the mud in the process. This scared Mr. Mock really bad and he took off running toward the hole and scrabbled down the sides and across the deep thick mud. The combination of the excitement and physical exertion caused the fellow to collapse and die on the spot, never making it across to Mr. Ivey, who was not hurt but terribly scared. I have heard this story directly from Mr. Ivey and also from the caretaker who did Mr. Mock’s funeral.

Sometimes huge crystals have been found at the site. The biggest ever found has a good story behind it. I have heard Mr. Ivey tell the story many times about how a beautiful girl came to dig crystals. 40 years later there is still a twinkle in his eye as he tells of this fine woman who came to dig. The woman asked Mr. Ivey to show her a good spot to dig so he took the time to show her a spot that looked good to him. At the end of the day Mr. Ivey went down to the hole to check her progress and she showed him a small bucket with several small crystals in it. She had sat in one place and dug a trench around her in a perfect circle. Mr. Ivey puzzled on that and went on home and to bed. The next morning this bothered him mightily, so at first light he ran down to the hole and swung his pick dead center in the mound of undisturbed dirt where the girl had sat. The pick sunk deep and made that telltale ring of steel on quartz. After digging back and clearing some dirt and clay, a huge crystal was revealed. It was not quite as big as a milk jug and a perfect double terminated crystal! Mr. Ivey likes to say that the girl "hatched it“.

The site yields countless small straight clear crystals of quartz. These are typically frosted on the outside and water clear internally. The amethyst crystals are plentiful and sometimes pockets were hit that yielded several buckets of crystals in a single pocket. The crystals are typically of a gray bluish purple and the faces are usually etched. Sometime a good color is found and rarely in combination with good shiny faces. Even rarer still is gemmy crystals as most are terribly cloudy and internally crazed. The place has yielded many good scepters and enhydro crystals. An enhydro has a two phase inclusion of a liquid and a gas, usually water and air ( co2 ). Sometimes a real treat is found when you encounter a three-phase inclusion. These have a solid in them, which is usually clay. When you tilt these crystals the air bubble shoots upward and the clay mass falls downward. When digging in the hole, I usually just swung a pick and looked for places where the pick would just sink in. The best indicator was to watch where water flowed out of the rock. Whereever the seams and pockets were was where the water would flow. The mud would also expand out under pressure and this too would be an indicator of a hidden pocket.

Mr. Ivey ran the place from the sixties thru the mid eighties and as he dug deeper he hit water. At the first sign of water he bought a “mud hawg” diaphragm pump. Deeper he dug and faster came the water. Soon he bought a two-inch gas powered semi-trash pump. Still deeper he dug, till the 2 pumps wouldn’t suffice. The 2 pumps would keep up but if he quit pumping for a day or two it would take a very long time to pump out the water. When I first met Mr. Ivey in the mid -eighties, he told me it would take 5 days and nights to pump the water, and I finally got him to show me first hand around 1992.
In 1999 we gave it another go and this time I had saved up $800.00 for a track hoe. After pumping water for a week, in came the track hoe and I have never seen money go so quick for so little in return! At the end of the day I had a 5 gallon buckets of crystals, which sure isn’t much for eight hundred bucks. I thought about this a good bit and devised a plan. I ended up leasing the property and bought a huge pump. What I got to work was this huge pump that would relatively quickly pump a big volume of water. I ended up running a pay to dig amethyst hole for about 8 months and folks from all over the United States would see my website and make arrangements to visit.
When my agreed upon time ended on the lease, Mr. Ivey decided he didn’t want to renew and would rather make a catfish pond out of the now huge hole. There’s still amethyst in that hole. But it’s mighty deep!
For further information – and cool photographs — on Ivey Farm please visit Dixie Euhedrals.

- Rodney -