California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960

Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

A gold dredge in the river (or lake?), Oroville, California, ca.1930

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A gold dredge in the river (or lake?), Oroville, California, ca.1930

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Photograph of a gold dredge in the river (or lake?), Oroville, California, ca.1930. The gold dredging barge is about two stories tall. Machineries attached to the barge consist of a system of pulleys, conveyor belts and cables. Ladders provide access to the different levels of the barge. Piles of rocks cover the shores (at right).; "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.; "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.

Asset Metadata

Title A gold dredge in the river (or lake?), Oroville, California, ca.1930

Subject Industry -- Mining -- Butte County (file heading), mine sites (adlf), Mines and mineral resources (lcsh)

Tags OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Butte (counties), California (states), USA (countries)

Temporal Subject 1930

Type images

Format 1 photograph : photoprint, b&w ; 21 x 26 cm. (aacr2), photographic prints (aat), photographs (aat)

Source California Historical Society (contributing entity), California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960 (collection), Title Insurance and Trust, and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection, 1860-1960 (subcollection)

Date Created 1930

Creator Pierce, C.C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 (photographer)

Publisher University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Repository Email specol@lib.usc.edu

Repository Name USC Libraries Special Collections

Repository Location Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189

Rights Public Domain. Please credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

Copyright Public Domain. Please credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

Access Conditions Send requests to address or e-mail given

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/chs-m7586

Identifier 5996 (accession number), CHS-5996 (call number), CHS-5996 (filename), chs-m265 (legacy collection record id), chs-c65-7825 (legacy record id), chs-m7586 (legacy record id), USC-1-1-1-14125 (legacy record id), 1-112-7 (microfiche number), USC (project)

IIIF ID [Document.IIIFV3ID]

DM Record ID 7825

Unique identifier UC124212

Legacy Identifier CHS-5996.tiff

Type Image

Internet Media Type image/tiff

Resolution 19.1 in × 13.0 in at 300dpi
48.5 cm × 33.0 cm at 300dpi

Inherited Values

Title Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

Description The nearly 15,000 unique photographs of this collection contain the work of C.C. Pierce which cover the Los Angeles region city, street and architectural views, California Missions, Southwestern Native Americans, and turn-of-century Nevada, Arizona, and California. Pierce, active from 1886 to 1940, was one of the leading photographers of his day and amassed a collection of 15,000 images, including his own and those bought and copied from his contemporaries, George Wharton James and Charles Puck. The James collection contains over 2,000 images of portraits, customs, ceremonies, arts, and games of various groups of Southwestern Native Americans.

Date Created 1860/1960

Linked assets

Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

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