Finished Product from California Stone in California (Continued)
Volcanic tuff taken from a quarry 6 miles from "...Laws, on the Carson and Colorado Railroad," was used for building purposes in Bishop and Independence."
“San Francisco, August 22, 1890.
“Hon. Wm. Irelan, Jr.:
“Dear Sir: I would like to thank you for the assistance you have given me in finding red sandstone. I had been looking all over the State for red sandstone, and came here from Indianapolis in 1889 especially for that purpose, and was unsuccessful, until very lately, in finding any that suited my purpose in the State, although I was hunting for it for about six months.
“I heard of the Mining Bureau and happened to visit it one day and picked up a copy of the report, and in that report found a description of a deposit of red sandstone in Amador County. I immediately went to Amador County and secured the quarry. Found there was an immense body of it, at least forty acres, and about one hundred and seventy-five feet thick. I at once began to open it up, had the sandstone tested, found it to be of two qualities, a beautiful red and a pure white sandstone. We were very successful in selling the stone from the first day we started to work.
“The stone has been used in the California State Bank, corner of J and Fourth Streets, Sacramento, one of the finest buildings in the State; also in the Methodist Church in Stockton, one of the largest churches we have; and is now being used in the Christ Church in Alameda, and in the Church of the Holy Innocents in this city; also, the Crocker residence is being built of it almost entirely, and this will be one of the finest buildings ever put up here. It is also being used in a dozen other places in this city and State, namely, Ukiah Asylum, Ione Industrial School buildings, Home for the Feeble-Minded Children at Glen Ellen, Sacramento Post Office, and many other places.
“I had the stone tested by you and found that it will stand a crushing weight of seven thousand two hundred and ninety-five pounds to the square inch.
Bank in Sacramento - $35,000
Methodist Church in Stockton - $16,000
Crocker Building - $46,000
Ukiah Asylum, for this year - $26,000
“I can safely say, that through the discoveries of the State Mining Bureau, there will be at least $500,000 worth of stone taken from this quarry within the next three years, independent of the above, already provided for.
“Very respectfully yours, David O’Neil”
Sandstone from the O'Neal Sandstone Quarry (which was located about 8 miles south of Ione) was used for the entrance and trimmings of the Preston School buildings in Ione. The sandstone is described as having a "warm, rich, bright red color, and even, rather fine grain."
Jackson (12 mi. east of), Amador County, California – the Chaw-se Indian Grinding Rock (Marbleized Limestone Outcrop)
About the Chaw-se Indian Grinding Rock Park (from the Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park web site)
“Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park (IGR) is located in the Sierra Nevada foothills 12 miles east of Jackson. The park nestles in a little valley 2,400 feet above sea level with open meadows and large valley oaks that once provided the native Americans of this area with an ample supply of acorns. The park was created in 1968 and preserves a great outcropping of marbleized limestone with some 1,185 mortar holes – the largest collection of bedrock mortars in North America.”
"Jackson is primarily a brick town. After the disastrous early fires, which destroyed the frame structures, brick rather than stone was employed to rebuild a permanent and fireproof town. Among the better early stone buildings built of meta-adesitic agglomerate which was secured from the basement excavations or hillside quarries is the old Marre Store."
"Jenny Lind, today (circa 1948) almost deserted, was a booming town during the Gold Rush and vestiges of her previous opulence are seen in the abandoned ruins of stone and adobe buildings. The town can be reached from Cooperopolis via Salt Springs Valley and Milton. It is seven miles north of Milton. A building made of carefully dressed blocks of tuffaceous sandstone (Fig. 79) was once a grocery store. The building material was quarried near Valley Springs, a few miles to the north.."
"...One large adobe structure still stands (Fig. 80). Its foundation is made of local fieldstone. An old quarry, dug into an outcrop of Ione Silty Sandstone can be seen on the hillside just behind the town (Fig 81)."
The inscription on the plaque reads:
“Keller – End of the Line. From Mound House, Nevada, narrow gauge rails of the Carson & Colorado Railroad reached this site in 1883. Cerro Gordo and the other mines faltered, the rail line fell on hard times, so plans to extend the line to Mojave were abandoned, leaving Keeler as “end of the line.” Dedicated May 12, 1973, Slim Princess Chapter, E. Clampus Vitus, Inyo County Board of Supervisors.”
The inscription on the plaque reads:
Owens Lake Dust Mitigation Program
“Owens Lake was once over 300 feet deep and part of a large ancient freshwater lake. As the climate changed over centuries, the lake began to dry up leaving behind concentrated minerals and salts. By 1905, diversion of water by farmers in the Owens Valley, coupled with drought in the region, had shrunk the lake even further to approximately 80% of what it was in the mid 1800s. In 1913, the City of Los Angeles purchased most of the water rights in the Owens Valley and completed the first Los Angeles Aqueduct to divert much of the remaining water in the Owens River south to the City of Los Angeles. As a result, the lakebed has been essentially dry since 1920.
“Dust blowing from the dry lakebed became a problem for the communities surrounding Owens Lake, and its presence eventually constituted a violation of the Federal air quality dust standard. In July of 1998, the City of Los Angeles and the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District entered into a historic agreement committing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to mitigate the dust conditions.
“This marker signifies the first phase of a dust control program – Shallow flooding. This involves delivering water to emissive areas of the lakebed until the soil becomes thoroughly wet to the surface and is unable to emit dust.
“This program is a part of a series of actions in which the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power have taken positive steps to protect the environment.
“Dated November 17, 2001 – Los Angeles DWP Department of Water & Power”
"At the little town of Kelsey six miles north of Placerville, on Highway 93 to Georgetown, a frame cabin has been reconstructed on the site once occupied by the blacksmithy of James Marshall. This cabin once housed a museum, the only remaining exhibit (circa 1948) of which is a granodiorite muller stone from an old arrastre, the primitive manual mill employed by Mexicans in the very first efforts in California to reduce gold from hard rock ores (Fig. 141)."
“…At a sharp bend in the Bottlerock road, 5 miles from Kelseyville or 2 miles from the point where this road leaves State Highway 29, an old road leads to the foundation of an old hotel that was built of local stone at a distance of only a few hundred yards from the Bottlerock road. The stone is almost like obsidian but is cryptocrystalline. Most of the stone in the immediate vicinity, sec. 1, T. 12 N., R. 9 W., M. D., is obsidian.”
Henley Sandstone.
“...The Henley sandstone is a moderately fine-grained, light bluish-gray stone, showing to the unaided eye, dark gray and whitish quartz granules, with numerous black and few white mica scales, held together by a slight argillaceous and calcareous cement....”
“Occurrence. – The owner of the quarry, Mr. Robert Rangeley, of Henley, Siskiyou County, states that the sandstone beds are behind the town of Henley, and within one mile of Hornbroke Station on the California and Oregon Railroad; that the supply is inexhaustible, and that the stone was used in the construction of the abutments for the railroad bridge over the Klamath River.”
"Settled by William Knight in 1848, this town on the Stanislaus River soon became a center for local mining and an important point on the route to the Mother Lode...Knight was succeeded by the Dent brothers (brothers-in-law to U.S. Grant), who built the Tullock Mill (Fig. 37) at the east end of town near the famous covered bridge. The brick one-story warehouse was raised in 1852-58 and the stone grist mill buildings were erected in 1852 by T. Vinson, an English stone mason. Vinson built the piers and abutments of the covered bridge in 1862-63. The brown and pink stone used in the Tullock Mill is local Ione sandstone quarried in the nearby slopes; other stones in the main east and south walls are from granite and conglomerate river boulders.
"The use of local Ione sandstone is also evidenced in Knights Ferry in the low retaining walls (Fig. 40, left) which line the back streets and alleys. The famous iron jail is perhaps the most unusual one in the Mother Lode district. The Chinese are attributed authorship of the adobe brick houses, remnants of which may be seen south of the road near the jail. Their basement walls are of Ione sandstone blocks or rounded river cobble-mud-mortar construction.."
McGilvray Granite Quarry (Inactive), Photographic Tour, Knowles, California (photographs taken Sept. 2010)
A part of the McGilvray Granite Quarry in Knowles, California |
Another part of the McGilvray Granite Quarry |
McGilvray Granite Quarry |
Granite structures left in place |
St. Anne’s Church, Knowles, CA, built by Peter Bisson of locally quarried granite |
"La Grange is located south of Highway 120 and west of Coulterville.
"In La Grange proper is a beautifully preserved adobe brick building...Opposite the building is a pair of stone buildings complete with iron doors (Fig. 39). They are made of light tan-and-pink Ione sandstone which occurs just west of La Grange.
"Two miles south of La Grange on the road to Coulterville is a stone-walled ditch used in earlier times for mining operations (Fig. 40, right). It is neatly made of dry-laid flat schist slabs gathered from the immediate vicinity."
A large Sierra White Granite Sculpture and a small Sierra White Granite sculpture are shown on M. C. Carolyn’s web site. (Sierra White granite is quarried at Raymond in Madera County, California.)
“1939 Summer homes at Lake Tahoe – Many years Marshall Ruhkala (mason)”
According to this web site, “In the Pioneer Section of Lancaster Cemetery stands a ten-foot memorial to the early Japanese settlers of the Antelope Valley. This elegant monument, featuring a sierra white-granite* obelisk, was established by thirteen Japanese families and originally dedicated in 1938….” (* Sierra White granite is quarried at Raymond in Madera County, California.)
"Logtown is located in Logtown Ravine about midway between Plymouth and El Dorado. In the little flat near which was once the site of Logtown are two stone house ruins. One, seen through the cottonwoods on the west side of the road (Fig. 119), is of especial interest because laid in the mortared walls of meta-andesite are a number of beautifully polished, mottled granodiorite millstones from an old arrastre (Fig. 120). Fifteen of these arrastre stones average 22 inches long, 15 inches wide, and 10 inches thick. Others even larger occur in the vicinity at random, as though they were too heavy to be of use. On the back surface of the stones are three conjoined drill holes which received iron eye-bolts to which the chains were attached. All show a smooth, undulating, grinding surface marred only by curved scratches formed by contact with the quartz ore. Many have flat or rounded sides which were caused by contact with the sides of the arrastre walls (cf. Fig. 139).
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