Mercury Storage Vault - New Almaden, CA, USA
Posted by: 
saopaulo1
N 37° 10.407 W 121° 49.573
10S E 604203 N 4114758
One of a group of ten interpretive signs at the Quicksilver County Park erected by California State Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Waymark Code: WM184Q3
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 05/29/2023
Views: 2
The vault and the interpretive sign are located in the overflow parking area of the county park. The vault was used to store mercury collects from the mine. The Almaden Quicksilver County Park is the site of a former mine. The former mining equipment is from the Guadalupe Mine and was donated by Guadalupe Rubbish Company.
DAR Chapter: The California State Society Daughters of the American Revolution
Inscription:
After cleaned mercury is collected, it was placed in iron flasks for transportation to market. A flask of mercury weighs about 76 pounds when filled and a flask needs to be strong because of the density of the liquid metal.
Filled containers of mercury were valuable (worth about $720 per flask in 1965), so they were usually stored under lock and key. This “vault” (upper left illustration) was used to store mercury flasks during the last twenty years of mining. The flasks would be accumulated until a minimum lot was available to sell to a broker, usually ten flasks. The miners would load the filled flasks into a truck or car and drive them to the broker. In the last years of mining, the broker was Quicksilver Products Inc. in Burlingame, California.
In the lower left photo, Andrew Dahlgren fills flasks at New Almaden, about 1894. From Images of America: New Almaden.
The California State Society Daughters of the American Revolution
Date Placed: Not listed
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