The Yuba collection contains business files and documents pertaining to the activities of Wendall P. Hammon and the founding the Yuba Construction Company and Yuba Consolidated Gold Fields, including annual reports of both companies and reports of other mining companies. Also included in the collection are specifications and estimates for dredge building, orders for new dredges, blueprints of dredges, photographs, maps and Hammon's scrapbooks on dredge and other mining.

Gold dredging in California began in 1850 when a small river boat was fitted out as a dredge and gravel mining was attempted above Marysville, California on the Yuba River. The first successful gold dredge in California was built in 1898 by Biggs, Butte County resident Wendell P. Hammon, the "Dredger King," and his partner, Thomas Couch, a Montana mining businessman. This first model and those that followed consisted of a floating hull, a digging ladder, an endless chain of buckets, screening apparatus, gold-saving devices, pumps, and a stacker. The California dredge was developed from models used earlier in New Zealand and in Montana, proving to be much more efficient than earlier one-bucket attempts.

The library can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary property.

Collection is open for research.