| Photographers number: | Unnumbered |
|---|---|
| Title: | Sutter's Mill, South Fork, American River, Coloma, El Dorado County |
| Notes: | CMP notes: Silver copy print of a dagguereotype. Even in Watkins's time, this picture would have been considered a historical rarity. This mammoth plate is a copy of a photographone that may have been a daguerreotypeit shows the location where gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California [Footnote 1], along with an unidentified figure prominently featured in the foregroundpossibly James W. Marshall or another member of the discovery party. The original source image would have been created approximately thirty years before Watkins made his mammoth-plate copy of it. The date assigned to it by Watkins (as January 19, 1848) reflects the popular understanding of the date of the gold discovery rather than the date the source picture was made [Footnote 2]. Based on costume and photographic style the source photograph appears to have been made in the early 1850s, and the copy is believed to have been made between 1875 and 1883. At least one large question is |
| Photographer: | Carleton E Watkins |
| Publisher: | Carleton Watkins |
| Format: | Mammoth Plate |
| Photographed: | 1875-1883 |
| Image courtesy of: | Online Archive of California |
| Tags: | California | El Dorado County | Mill |
| CarletonWatkins.org ID: | 1005543 |