Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 Public Domain. Release under the CC BY Attribution license--http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/--Credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library; From the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California Send requests to address or e-mail given USC Libraries Special Collections specol@usc.edu
Description
Photograph of a gold dredge at work, Feather River, California, ca.1900. Four men in a boat(?) are about to dock near one of the several side entrances to the gold dredging barge. The barge consists of a large two-story building using machineries such as pulleys, conveyor belts, buckets and cables to dredge for gold. "In certain cases, placer material is most economically excavated with a shore-mounted dragline or backhoe and a floating (barge-mounted) concentrating plant. (The digging equipment may also be mounted on a separate barge or on the same barge as the plant.) Material is dug from the sides and bottom of the mining pond and deposited into the washing plant's hopper. Oversized material is rejected by screening and placed in waste piles, while the undersized material is distributed to a gravity-separation system consisting of riffled sluices, jigs, or similar equipment. After treatment, as much waste as possible is returned to the pond, but, owing to swell, some waste may be deposited outside of the pond area. The pond moves along with the mining front. The backhoe technique has the advantages of powerful digging and good control." -- Encyclopedia Britannica.. "This district is in southwestern Butte County. It is mainly a dredging field that extends from just west of the city of Oroville southwest along the Feather River to a point about five miles due east of Biggs. The field is one to two miles wide and nine miles long. History. Shallow placers were mined here during the gold rush. The area was settled in 1849: Oroville originally was known as Ophir City, but the name was changed in 1855. Around 1895, W. P. Hammon and others tested the area to determine the feasibility of mining on a large scale. They introduced bucket-line dredging in 1898, the first in California. The field was highly productive from 1903 to 1916 in 1908 there were 35 dredges and 12 dredging companies active in the field. Output later declined, but dredging was done again from 1936 to 1942 and 1945 to 1952. The dredge field is now an important source of sand and gravel. The total Output from dredging is estimated to be about 1,964,000 ounces of gold." -- W.B. Clark.
Type
image
Format
1 photograph : photonegative, b&w 21 x 26 cm. negatives (photographic) photographic prints photographs
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.
