- We're here at the
Samuel Adams lime kilns.
They use these kilns to burn the lime
at very high temperatures and
process it into quick lime,
which is a really important raw ingredient
that went into a lot of things,
particularly construction material
that was important in the
building of San Francisco
and Sacramento and places like that.
It was big business, yes,
it supported this area
or it created numerous
jobs for recent immigrants.
The industry became
monopolized by many prominent
historical figures, Cowell
being the best known one.
And it was a major source of
income for people in this area
throughout the mid to late 19th Century.
Yeah, right here we have an
excavation unit in place.
We wanted to get an idea
of the types of materials
associated with the work
spaces at this site.
We have a number of other units
at households and domestic spaces.
Were they strictly work spaces,
or were people using these
as social spaces, were there
other things going on here?
And to our surprise, we
found very little evidence
of anything besides work,
almost no bottle glass,
no pipe stems, nothing like that
that would suggest people are
spending a lot of time here.
Maybe that's 'cause it would
have been extremely hot
close to these kilns, but
even in further away places
that we assume are work spaces,
we're seeing very little
domestic or leisure activity
taking place, which is
suggesting there was a
pretty strict control over
how space was used here.
