Lime Production and Laborers’ Lives in the Sierra Foothills: Archaeology of a Holmes Company Continuous Lime Kiln
Publication Date
1-1-2025
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
California Archaeology
DOI
10.1080/1947461X.2025.2468532
Abstract
The 2021 River Fire exposed a long abandoned lime kiln near the town of Colfax, in the Sierra foothills. The kiln was a rare two-stack monitor continuous kiln, which archival research revealed was operated by the Holmes Lime Company from 1903 to 1911. Continuous kilns were a technological innovation that increased production. Lime production is an extractive industry and one of many industrial enterprises exploiting natural resources for the development of California with links through production to other industries. California’s nineteenth-century prosperity as a whole can be seen as driven by resource-based extractive industry. Such industries provide significant labor opportunities. The kiln complex included evidence of the workers’ habitation area and much of the industrial landscape associated with production. Artifacts recovered during a short field season offered insights into the lives and health of workers at this manufacturing site.
Keywords
2021 River Fire, environment, extractive industry, immigration, labor, landscape, lime kiln, mining
Department
Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Marco Meniketti. "Lime Production and Laborers’ Lives in the Sierra Foothills: Archaeology of a Holmes Company Continuous Lime Kiln" California Archaeology (2025). https://doi.org/10.1080/1947461X.2025.2468532
