This photo is of the remains of a boiler from the popular "Steam Donkey", used extensively in California and other parts of America, as a source of portable power. Steam Donkeys were relied upon in lumber camps of the west, to run portable saws to cut big trees into little ones so that they could be hauled down to saw mills for finishing into lumber or cordwood. This boiler is found at South Lake, on the South Fork of Bishop Creek, near Bishop, California. It remains from the first decade of the 20th century, when the Nevada-California Power Company began building a series of dams and hydroelectric power plants along Bishop Creek and its forks, to supply electric power to the bustling cities of Tonopah, Goldfield and Rhyolite, Nevada. Photo taken October, 1998.
(Courtesy David A. Wright, Great Basin Reseach)


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