Mud Creek Glacier Photo Album, 1924-1941

View only results with digital items
Printable guide [HTML]

Summary

Title:
Mud Creek Glacier Photo Album
Dates:
1924-1941
Creators:
Morton & Co..
Abstract:
Photographs of Mud Creek Glacier on Mt. Shasta in August and September of 1924. Warmer weather caused a melting of the glacier, sending down the canyon a wall of water, mud, sand, and rock.
Extent:
0.3 Linear feet 1 Box with 21 items
Language:
and English
Preferred citation:

Mud Creek Glacier Photo Album, MSS 304, Special Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains correspondence with W.B. Cook dated January 17, 1941, a bibliography of related resources, 1 map of Mount Shasta, and 19 photographs of Mud Creek Glacier on Mt. Shasta in August and September of 1924. Warmer weather caused a melting of the glacier, sending down the canyon a wall of water, mud, sand, and rock.

All photographs were taken September, 1924. Included in the photographs are 4 enlargements that create a panorama of Mud Creek Canyon - north wall of Mud Creek Canyon. All of the photographs have been cataloged and given a sc number, except for three.

Biographical / historical:

Mount Shasta’s summit is 14,162 feet above the sea, but from about 12,000 ft. level the terrain is covered with perpetual snow and rock and circled by five large glaciers which are situated by the points of the compass from the summit rocks as follows: North slope, has Hotlum and Bolam glaciers, East slope has Wintoon glacier, West slope has Whitney glacier, and the South slope has Konwakiton glacier, which is popularly known as Mud Creek or McCloud glacier, as it is the source of the McCloud River.

In the winter of 1924, because of the light snowfall the glaciers were free of snow by the first of May, and commenced to melt and discharge large streams of water. Since the melting was mainly along the sides, the water ran under the ice and soon formed channels and undermined the foundations of the Mud Creek Glacier. By the end of June the bodies of ice commenced to break off at the lower ends and falling some hundreds of feet carried great masses of rock sand and gravel with them.

Observers stated that with sounds like the discharge of cannon, masses as large as an ordinary house would break off every two or three minutes and away they would go down the canyon. The resultant avalanches wrecked the McCloud water system, and made a great slope of glacial sand some seven miles long and a mile or more wide, with a depth of from five to thirteen feet and discolored the McCloud, the Pit and the Sacramento Rivers for miles from their sources.

Acquisition information:
Purchase, 1980.
Processing information:

Processing of the Mud Creek Glacier Photo Album was generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The [ABC repository] was awarded a Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from 2010-2012, "Uncovering California's Environmental Collections," in collaboration with eight additional special collections and archival repositories throughout the state and the California Digital Library (CDL). Grant objectives included processing of over 33 hidden collections related to the state's environment and environmental history. The collections document an array of important sub-topics such as irrigation, mining, forestry, agriculture, industry, land use, activism, and research. Together they form a multifaceted picture of the natural world and the way it was probed, altered, exploited and protected in California over the twentieth century. Finding aids are made available through the Online Archive of California (OAC).

Arrangement:

Original

Material specific details:
No other forms of material.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Finding aid prepared by Leilani Silver, Pamela Nett Kruger
Sponsor:
Processing of this collection was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program.
Date Prepared:
6/19/2010
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2013-12-04T13:21-0800

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research without restriction.

Terms of access:

No restrictions.

Preferred citation:

Mud Creek Glacier Photo Album, MSS 304, Special Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.

Location of this collection:
California State University, Chico, Special Collections Meriam Library
400 West First Street
Chico, CA 95929-0295, US
Contact:
(530) 898-6603
SpecialCollections@csuchico.edu
Website