Stamp Mill - Sutter Creek, CA - Preserved Machines on Public Display on Waymarking.com

The mill is in the middle of the park. The park opened in 2016. The plaque at the site reads:



"Stamp mills were used in ancient times in various forms for processing food grains and for crushing and processing metal ores. These were mainly made of wood and were driven by animal or water power. Stamp mills for ore processing were in use in the eastern US as early as 1829 and they were further developed in the English tin mines of Cornwall in the 1850s. Cornish stamp mills were constructed from heavy timbers with many iron components to make the mill more robust and rugged, Iron components camshaft, cross supports and iron heads improved the performance and reliability of the milling process. Smaller stamp mills were powered by water wheels and larger mills by steam engines.

The basic concepts of the stamp mill were developed by the time of California’s Gold Rush. The first stamp mill in Amador County was instructed Amador City and was driven with the wooden water wheel other soon followed in Sutter Creek and surrounding areas. Over the time stamp mills were modified and improved on site and local foundries and machine shops to meet the needs of Mother Lode mining conditions and ores. Thus, the California stamp mill was born and then exported worldwide. Stamp mills came in all shapes and sizes and were produced by many foundries and machine shops in California. The standard configuration was five stamps in a battery box as shown here. The stamp mill at a mine could then be anywhere from 5 to 100 stamps or more.

Pre-crushed and sorted ore was fed into the back of the Stamp mill along with the constant flow of water. The stamps pulverized the ore into fine and releasing most of the free gold. The crushed sand passed out through the fine screen at the front of the stamp box and the free gold was trapped on the mercury tovered amalgam plates. The sound and any gold that left the amalgam plates were then further chemically treated to recovered the remaining gold."

Type of Machine: Stamp mill Year the machine was built: Unknown Year the machine was put on display: 2016 Is there online documentation for this machine: Not listed

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