Even after the gold fever died down, gold itself was in the air in San Francisco—as long as you knew where to look. That place would be in the San Francisco Mint. In a majestic granite and sandstone building downtown, bullion was turned into gold coins—as well as lots and lots of gold dust.
A fascinating 1893 newspaper tour of the San Francisco Mint—spotted by historian Yoni Appelbaum spotted on Twitter—takes us into the workrooms where men cut gold into strips and the adjusting rooms where ladies filed coins down to just the right size. Millions in precious metal passed through these rooms every year, and none of it went to waste, recovered, instead, through "seemingly small economies." This included setting fire to the carpets to find any gold dust trapped within: read more...
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