Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

"Clean Up Day" at the Deadwood Terra Gold Stamp Mill near Terraville in the Dakota Territory. Ore fed into the mill is stamped, or crushed, to prepare it for the chemical extraction of gold. Photograph by John C.H. Grabill. View full size.
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