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Lowden’s Office, Weaverville, Cal[ifornia].: Minersville Hydraulic Gold Mining [Company], [ca. 1900]. Blueprint, 30” x 49.5”, recently mounted on linen. A few early ink “X” inscriptions at lower middle. CONDITION: Good, old folds now flattened, light discoloration, light wear.

A rare blueprint map showing a hydraulic gold mining company’s operation in Weaverville, Trinity County, three of the company’s properties, and other neighboring claims. 

Three mines belonging to the Minersville Hydraulic Gold Mining Company—Minersville No. 1, 2, and 3—are seen at lower middle, which add up to 470 acres. Showing some twenty-one mines, the map also depicts such details as roads, named buildings, homes, tanks, reservoirs, pits, ditches, gravel beds, gulches, creeks, rivers, and streams. The acreage of each mining property is given—the largest embracing some 160 acres. In the upper right is a chart listing each of the mines, their acreage, patents, and other details. The chart in the lower right lists seven ditches along with their capacity in inches. The area around the three Minersville mines features the most detail, where a dance hall, butcher shop, school, hotel, and more are represented. The scale of the map is 660 feet to one inch.

Weaverville in Trinity County was a gold rush town established in the early 1850s. During the 1850s the town grew and attracted thousands of miners. The first hydraulic mine in Trinity County began operating at Junction City in 1870—some eight miles from Weaverville. Following the introduction of hydraulic mining, a mining boom resulted. “By 1870, Weaverville was shipping $1.5 million worth of gold annually” (“The Search for Gold”). Many hydraulic mines operated in the area, including the La Grange mine, which for a time was the largest in the world. During the 1880s lode mining started, which was followed by gold dredging.

Fred Beaudry (d. 1911) was a prominent mining man in Trinity County. One of his obituaries details his career as follows: “Mr. Beaudry was a native of Canada, though a Frenchman. He was a competent mining engineer and had done much for the development of Trinity County. It was he who negotiated the sale of the La Grange mine to the French company that operated it for many years and made it famous the world over. Mr. Beaudry was also manager of the big hydraulic mine at Junction City…He was also connected with the hydraulic mines at Minersville and was instrumental in bonding them to the present operating company. Mr. Beaudry had extensive mining interests in Siskiyou county in the vicinity of Callahan.”

Henry L. Lowden (1857–1935) owned a ranch near Weaverville and served as a county surveyor of Trinity County. He created Official Map Of Trinity County, California (1894) as well as numerous mining maps.

OCLC records no copies of this map, although a smaller version (about half the size) is known. California Historical Society holds what appears to be the manuscript map, dated 1900, which this blueprint map replicates. The credit at lower right on the present map identifies the maker as “Rowden’s Office,” but this is clearly a mistake and should read “Lowden’s Office.”

REFERENCES: “The Search for Gold in Weaverville, Cal.” at Trinity County Resource Conservation District online; “Weaverville, California” at Western Mining History online; Record Searchlight (Redding, California), Dec. 5, 1911, p. 2.

Item #9406

Price: $950.00