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Time Travel Tuesday – 07-09-2024 Go back in time with us as we dive into the Amador County newspaper archives from the late 1800’s

by | Jul 10, 2024 | Time Travel

– Time Travel Tuesday –

July 2024, From the Amador Ledger Archives

Go back in time with us as we dive into the Amador County newspaper archives from the late 1800’s and throughout the 1900’s and see what they were saying about the kaolin clay deposits here in the Ione area, and how they still relate to us and our operations today!

– The back story – 

Amador County is considered the heart of the Motherlode in California because of its ever-so-rich gold mining history where the precious commodity was discovered in abundance back in the gold rush era in the mid 1800’s. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to this area in hoped of striking rich. What also was discovered, were other high-value minerals, especially in the city of Ione. You guessed it, kaolin clay was one of those.
Purebase thought it would be interesting to tie in our mineral history from hundreds of years ago and show our audience just how long these deposits have been utilized by locals and beyond for hundreds of years. Once a month, we will show you first-hand newspaper excerpts from the Amador Ledger newspaper that has been in existence since 1855 and is still fully functioning today, now called the Ledger Dispatch.
   This month’s ‘Time Travel Tuesday’ excerpt comes from the Ione Valley Echo, a smaller newspaper publication that focused solely on the area of Ione, rather than Amador County as a whole. Take a look at this excerpt from the July 06, 1912 issue. It highlights the chemistry of the kaolin clay deposits found here in Ione and concludes that it is “hydrated silicate of alumina”. The definition of a pozzolan is a “silicious and aluminous material, that when in a finely divided form, reacts with calcium hydroxide at ordinary temperatures to form compounds possessing cementitious properties.”
The front page of the July 6, 1912 issue of the Ione Valley Echo newspaper, where the above excerpt was clipped from.