KC Museum

Assay Office

assayoffice1:

Kern County experienced a mining boom just like other parts of California. Prospectors arriving from near and far found gold, silver and other valuable ore in Kern County’s mountains beginning in the 1850s.

An assayer tests the purity of gold and other precious metals in a sample of rock and minerals.

This exhibit resembles the assay office at the Yellow Aster Mine in Randsburg, a mining town in eastern Kern County, around 1900. The Yellow Aster Mine is one of the most famous gold mines in southern California producing millions of dollars worth of gold.

This typical board and batten style building, donated by C. Arthur and Lillian Harbaugh, was relocated from Rosedale to the Kern County Museum in 1980.


This is a Manila site.