Mining History: Hydraulic Mining

While the origins of hydraulic mining could be traced to ancient Roman technology, it’s popularly recognized use came around in the 1850s with the California Gold Rush. By shooting high pressure jets of water to dislodge and direct earth, hydraulic mining brought new life to the mostly played out placer claims of the California foothills….

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Crocker Art Museum

While mining may be dirty work, sometimes, there is a time for the finer things.  The Crocker Art Museum has a massive collection of early California art, much of which is inspired by—and often funded by those who profited from—the gold rush.  Located only a few blocks from Old Town Sacramento and the Sacramento History…

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Sacramento History Museum

While most think of San Francisco or Los Angeles as California’s major cities, back in the days of the Gold Rush, Sacramento was not only the state capitol but a major hub, blossoming with nugget-fueled commerce. The Sacramento History Museum devotes a large portion of their displays to gold rush era Sacramento and its environs. Along with many impressive gold nuggets, visitors can view water canons, assayers scales, and the everyday equipment of miners.

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Gold Rush San Francisco

Last week, we enjoyed taking the Gold Rush City Walking Tour through San Francisco City Guides. The tour is a great opportunity to celebrate the role of the gold rush in San Francisco.  After enjoying it, we wanted to take this opportunity to write a bit about San Francisco’s position as a stage for the beginning of the…

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Understanding Townships

This entry focuses on a part of our earlier discussion, Understanding Location Data. For greater context on what we will be addressing, please read that post first. One of the more confusing aspects of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the concept of “townships.” A “township” can refer to two different things. Both are part of…

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