A large group of workers standing and on flatbed trucks pose for this photograph. Large rocks are positioned in the dirt to spell out "US-CCC COMPANY 1917" (United States - Civilian Conservation Corps Company 1917). Four men in uniform stand at the base of a flagpole in the center of the photograph. The New Almaden Quicksilver Mine in Santa Clara County, California is the oldest and most productive quicksilver (i.e., mercury) mine in the United States. The site was known to the Ohlone Indians for its cinnabar long before a Mexican settler discovered the ores in 1820. By the time they were identified as mercury, the mine was perfectly timed to supply the California Gold Rush. The mine ran intermittently after 1927 and eventually closed. It was purchased by the county and is now part of Almaden Quicksilver County Park. The town of New Almaden is located south of San Jose, off the Almaden Expressway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Almaden Scanned with Microtek Scanmaker 1000XL Pro; as a 600 dpi TIFF image in 8-bit Grayscale. Auto Level image processing applied and compressed into JPG format using Photoshop CS3.
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
