American Bar (site)

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Gold Rush era mining camp.

"In I856, Hallidie built a ditch and flume for a quartz mill, situated at American Bar, two miles above Gray Eagle Bar. The mine was on a hillside eleven hundred feet above the mill. The rock was delivered to the mill in car running by force of gravity. The loaded cars in descending brought up the "empties" for refilling. The rope to which the cars were attached wore out after seventy-five days. He proposed to substitute a wire rope which would cost less and last longer. The owners accepted his proposition. He improvised machinery, sent to San Francisco for wire, and made a wire rope one-eighth of an inch thick and twelve hundred feet long consisting of three pieces spliced together, which did its work for two years. This was the beginning of the manufacture of wire rope in California."

www.sfmuseum.org/bio/hallidie.html