The Hogarth Stamp Mill

After 1853 in California, stamp mills commonly used from one to five heavy pillar-like stamps with iron cylindrical shoes weighing as much as one thousand pounds to crush ore. Powered by water, steam, or electricity carried by belts to a large wheel and drive shaft, the machinery raised each stamp and released it onto the ore below until it was fine enough for gold to be recovered on tables by various methods. These California stamp mills were built so that a single head could crush 1.5 tons of ore a day, and at one time more than 300 stamps dropped 24 hours a day in Angels Camp. The origin of this five-stamp mill is unknown, but it first appears in the public record in November 1920, when Harry Sr., Harry, Jr., and Alvin Love Hogarth filed an affidavit of labor for their mining operation. In 1930, the three men were assessed for personal property that included the Relief Quartz Mine with an old five-stamp quartz mill and a 4 h.p. gasoline engine. In 2009, the stamp mill was purchased by the City of Angels Camp and placed with the original quartz mine water wheel to show the successive flow of material through the crushing stamps as gold was recovered from pulverized quartz ore.

Angels, California · United States