lost or deleted my download folder (not from dock)

I was attempting to drag the download folder into the sidebar to make it more readily availble when the entire folder vanished. It is not in the trash, it is not on the desktop, it is not showing up in Home, or in Spotlight. I cannot find it anywhere on the drive. Help!!! It had a LOT of stuff in it I need...

This is not a lost dock issue, that's easy to fix. How did dragging it to the sidebar delete it entirely from the drive? Is there a recovery path?

iMac 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo running OSX 10.6.8

Help!