This section offers access to part of our catalog of historical mineral commodity production records. The records provide detailed annual production data by county. We scanned these records to PDF from original typed and handwritten paper documents created by the California Division of Mines and Geology during the middle of the 20th century. These data are visualized as a map and graphs in our California Historical Mineral Production interactive data dashboard (below). To download the scanned records, proceed to the next section, "Downloading the scanned records."
Notes
We've bundled the scanned records into .zip file packages, and grouped them two ways to accommodate different needs:
- By Year, All Commodities: 12 packages. Package sizes range from 359 megabytes to 818 megabytes.
- By Commodity, All Years: 66 packages. Package sizes range from 1 megabyte to 852 megabytes.
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More notes . . .
Most of the records fall into two major categories: "Production" [data], and "Mailing list" (examples are shown in the adjacent images).
Example production record. Select the image to open a full size version in a new window.
Example mailing list record. Select the image to open a full size version in a new window.
Many of the Production records show not only commodities produced, but also commodities sold or used; consumed; or shipped. There are some records of ores received (by smelters). For simplicity we categorized them all as Production records.
Other useful information you'll find in the scanned records include producer name, producer location, and mine name (these information are not included in the data dashboard).
There are also a few "Mailing memo" and "Production memo" records that are exactly what the names imply. They don't offer statistical value, but we included them nonetheless.
The records available here represent a fraction of the entire paper collection. We intend to scan and catalog additional records in the future.
This work is funded in part by the U.S. Geological Survey under the National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program, Grant No. G21AS00007.
