Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
Fabricas - Mineral Materials Used in Building in California Prior to 1850 (PH 6-2)(April 1952) (194 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 194
FOREWORD
Fabricas, a chronicle of the use of mineral materials in building in California
prior to 1850, is the second in the Division of Mines series of documents on the
history of discovery and development of mineral materials in California. The
first, The Elephant As They Saw It, covers the history of gold mining to 1862,
and was issued as a centennial supplement to the California Journal of Mines
and Geology for October 1949.
Since the release of The Elephant, numerous requests for a similar publication
on California missions have been received. Fabricas is presented partly in response to these requests, for the history of the early use of building materials
in California is in large part the history of building at the California missions;
but it has been prepared chiefly as a chronicle of California’s first documented
mineral industry—the procuring of nonmetallic mineral materials for use in
construction—which ranks second only to the petroleum industry in value of
production today.
As in The Elephant, the data in Fabricas are presented through the words and
drawings of contemporary writers and artists. Some of the extracts (which have
been reproduced literally from the original records whenever it has been possible
to do so) are in Spanish, French, or German, because English was the native
language of a minority group only in the State prior to the Gold Rush of 1849.
For all extracts in foreign languages, however, English translations are appended.
For their help in collecting and preparing for publication the material contained in this compilation, I wish to thank Mrs. Geil Bartels Braun, formerly
of the Division of Mines Editorial Section staff; Misses Mary Rae Hill and
Madeline Hernandez, presently of the Editorial Section staff; and Miss Geraldine
E. Martino. I should like also to express appreciation to Mrs. Edith Webb of Los
Angeles, Mrs. Dorothy Shadi of Berkeley, and Father Maynard Geiger of Mission Santa Barbara, who have responded generously to numerous requests for
assistance; to the California State Library in Sacramento, the Bancroft Library
and General Library of the University of California at Berkeley, The Huntington Library in San Marino, the Santa Barbara Archives at the Old Mission in
Santa Barbara, The Society of California Pioneers in San Francisco, the California Historical Society in San Francisco, the Serra Museum of the San Diego
Historical Society in San Diego, the Southwest Museum in Highland Park in
Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum in Exposition Park in Los Angeles,
the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco,
The Book Club of California in San Francisco, and the Museo Naval in Madrid,
for making material from their collections of Californiana available to us; and
to-the staff members of each of the above institutions, who have given us so
much patient assistance during the two years we have been collecting the data
presented herein.
ELIsaBETH L. EGENHOFF
Editor, Division of Mines
January 15, 1952.
[3]