Welcome
Welcome to the Samuel Knight Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology, a Northern California organization for people interested in industrial heritage and preservation. Our members include engineers, architects, professors, archaeologists and folks who just love old factories. We have members from San Diego to Reno, with many members in the Greater Bay Area. As the banner above illustrates, we sponsor a number of activities including visits to contemporary and historic industrial sites, lectures, and active study of industrial archeology related topics. Many of our plant visits are to sites unavailable to the general public. We invite you to join us!
If you are planning a visit to the Bay Area, here's a map with lots of current and historical industrial sites, some of which were stops for tours during SIA 2008. For the bridge fans, here's a map showing bridges in the area identified by Caltrans as historic in their 2006 survey (and some others identified by KPIX in a show on interesting bridges.)
Talk: High Tech IA - New Chapter Event, 7:30 PM, 8/5/10, Oakland, CA
Please join us for a unique Chapter event, a talk by Richard Anderson, one of the SIA's most prominent working industrial archeologists, who will be presenting his talk from the SIA Annual Conference Photography Workshop, Applications of Digital Images to CAD in Industrial Archeology, on the use of scanned historic photographs and state-of-the-art CAD tools to create accurate digital models of historic IA sites and artifacts. This will be at the Historic Central Building, 1400 Broadway, Oakland, CA. This is quite near the 12th Street BART station, and there is ample parking in the area. We are very lucky that Richard is here in the Bay Area, where he is working on documenting the steam schooner Wampa in Richmond. Please join us for this very special event, and please contact Tony Meadow ameadow@gmail.com to let us know that you're coming.
Tour: Fiscalini Farms and Fiscalini Cheese Company, 9/17/10, Modesto
In a blend of one of the most ancient industries, the production of cheese, with state of the art sustainable practices, please join us on a visit to the Modesto based Fiscalinin Farms and Cheese Company, on Friday, 9/17/10 at 10:30 AM.
Cheese in Modesto? Yes! Fiscalini Cheese makes world-class cheddar cheese, mozzarella, and other cheeses in Modesto. Fiscalini Farms is a third-generation dairy, founded in 1914, that uses innovative practices to ensure the health and comfort of their cows. This is a farmstead operation, meaning that the dairy and cheese-making are onsite together and managed by the same family.
We’ll be touring the dairy, the biodigester and methane-powered generator, and the cheesemaking operations. We’ll be walking about half a mile on flat ground in total. When we enter the cheesemaking plant we’ll be walking through a boot/shoe bath containing chlorine bleach to minimize any contamination from shoes. Please wear suitable shoes - expensive shoes, sandals, etc. are not good choices for this event.
Bring a cooler! You’ll have a chance to purchase some of their cheeses and they’ll do better on the way home if they’re kept cool.
Drive to this address. We are trying to coordinate carpool arrangements. Please call Tony Meadow at 510-334-8161 ameadow@gmail.com before Sept 10th.
Fiscalini Farms
7206 Kiernan Ave
Modesto, CA 95358
Sept 17, 1:30pm – Lunch at Barnwood Restaurant, Ripon, CA.
Talk: The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, 10/13/10, 7:30 PM, Oakland
The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project is the largest environmental restoration projects on the West Coast. An area approximately the size of Manhatten is being restored from historic salt production back to salt marsh over an estimated 50 year period. Salt production is one of our most historic industries, and remains important to the present day. Please join us at the Historic Central Building (1400 Broadway, Oakland) for a talk by Ellen Joslin Johnck the Executive Director of the Bay Planning Coalition. In 1983 she launched the Bay Planning Coalition, a non-profit, public benefit, membership corporation, to advocate for the balanced regulation and use of Bay-Delta resources to ensure that commerce, recreation and the environment thrive in the region. She will provide information on this fascinating industrial landscape and how a cultural landscape analysis can be used in the Restoration Project to document the landscape’s cultural resources; develop a heritage tourism plan and establish a basis for justifying the landscape’s cultural significance and potential eligibility. Please call Tony Meadow at 510-334-8161 ameadow@gmail.com if you will be joining us for fascinating talk.
Rebooting the Samuel Knight Chapter
The Chapter has been inactive during most of 2009. In an effort to revive the Chapter there are several new initiatives underway.
First, we were left with a modest surplus from SIA 2008. Since we didn't really do anything in 2008, we're going to waive dues for 2009 and 2010. For those of you who sent in dues in 2009, the checks have not been cashed, but you will be added to the membership lists and email list.
Second, we will be moving to electronic distribution of the Chapter Newsletter, both to save costs and the level of effort to publish it and improve the timeliness. One more paper copy is planned for the early March, 2010, to pass the word to everyone. The working plan is to post PDF versions of the Newsletter, to email notification of the availability of the PDF, and to post it in the RSS feed for this site.
Third, the Chapter mailing list will be migrating from a local list managed in Jay's email account to the SIA account on Constant Contact. The experiment with this service has gone well, and it offers much more rich features for email. An email will be sent out on the current list detailing these changes.
Due to sercurity problems that resulted in an attack on the Chapter web site, we have disabled the Forum and have migrated Jay's Blog. To take the place of the successful calendar of IA-related events in the Forum, we have set up a Google Calendar. If you have events to add, please contact Jay or Tony.
As the Chapter starts breathing on its own, we will be having a Chapter meeting, at which we'll select new officers and directors. Please let Jay or Tony know of your interest in helping.
