Knight Foundry, Sutter Creek, California

At the turn of the century Knight beat out several other large manufacturers to supply large diameter dredger pumps for use in San Francisco Bay, Seattle harbor and the Willamette and Columbia rivers.

Samuel Knight died in 1913 and over several years the business was acquired by long-time employees C.H. Norton and D.V Ramazotti. Ramazotti operated the foundry until the late 1940s.

One more piece of equipment was produced after Knight's death for which the foundry would receive a patent. This was the Knight Scarifier developed in 1928. This machine was an early day road ripper for taking the heavy ruts out of dirt roads which developed from heavy use or wet weather. The Scarifier was sold nationwide with some being exported to Central and South America, and several going to Africa.

For the fifty years from the early 1900s to mid-1950s, the foundry not only continued producing mining equipment for the gold mines of the Mother Lode but, also became an important producer of machinery for the timber and lumber industries.

Knight Foundry produced some of the original equipment installed in the saw mills of the central California foothills and later supplied replacement parts and repair facilities. Knight Foundry has counted most of the major lumber and timber operations in northern and central California among its customers and, in more recent years, day, sand, gravel and gold dredging operations. The foundry was taken over in the late 1940s by Mr. Herman Nelson, who operated the plant until his death in 1970.

Information, photographs courtesy of the Amador County Archives, The Historical Marker Database, the Chronicling America Database, and the Library of Congress