California, Santa Clara County, San Jose
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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.
(Industry & Commerce • Natural Resources) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
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.
(Industry & Commerce • Natural Resources) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.