Past Present: Preserving a Historic Remnant of our Region’s Mining Story
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Past Present: Preserving a Historic Remnant of our Region’s Mining Story
June 15, 2023 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Join the Mineral King Preservation Society at the Three Rivers Historical Museum as we prepare to unveil a new exhibit featuring a mining artifact that tells the story of an exciting period in our local and regional history!
On Thursday, June 15th, an expert from the National Park Service will be on-site working to preserve a portion of a smelting furnace used by the New England Tunnel and Smelter Company in 1876 and 1877. The iron artifact, which weighs about 500 pounds, traveled to Mineral King from Maryland via the mining town of Eureka, Nevada. In Mineral King, it witnessed Chinese laborers during a time of violence against them, women miners at at time when such things were nigh unheard of, and failed efforts to turn ore into gleaming metal. Join us at 11:00am for a discussion about the artifact, historical preservation, and the challenges of preserving this particular artifact.
This project is the result of a collaboration between the Mineral King Preservation Society, Sequoia National Park, and the National Park Service Western Archaeological & Conservation Center, with funding from the Society for Industrial Archaeology and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.