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Time Travel Tuesday – November 2024, From the Amador Ledger Archives

by | Nov 20, 2024 | Time Travel

– Time Travel Tuesday –

November 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 hopes 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.

 

 

The mineral reserves in Ione, CA are unique and vast, as well as an extremely important part of our everyday lives. November 2024 Time Travel Tuesday excerpt comes from the November 19, 1927 issue of the Ione Valley Echo from an article titled “Amador Clay Mines Are One of Ione’s Greatest Assets”.

The entirety of the article is quite interesting, and it is mentioned that “a great deal of interest centers in the clay mines of Amador County and the facts concerning them are considered so important that they have been carefully studied.” We agree to this day that the clay mines in this area are still one of Ione’s greatest assets!

 

There is a particular portion of the article that talks about a man of Ione, M.R. Bacon, who “has been for thirty-five years manager of the N. Clark and Sons interest in Ione clay mines.” It goes on to say that there is a specialty clay called “chocolate clay” and that M.R. Bacon “owns the only mine of this clay in the county and is known as ‘Bacon’s Chocolate’, as it looks like marble cake used for tiling.” To this day, the pit that is just west of Ione adjacent to Mule Creek Prison is still referred to as the “Bacon Pit.”