{"nrhp_refnum":"75000423","name":"Knight's Foundry and Shops","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"13 Eureka St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Sutter Creek","county":"Amador County","state":"CA","lat":38.39355883200005,"lon":-120.79995297899995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-07-01","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Commerce","Engineering","Invention"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Knight's Foundry and Shops is a wood-frame foundry and machine shop complex at 13 Eureka Street in Sutter Creek, Amador County, California. Samuel Newman Knight and partner George Horne established it in 1873 on its original site.","why_significant":"The foundry served the Mother Lode gold mining industry by building water turbines, stamp mills and other mining machinery. Samuel N. Knight's cup-shaped impulse water wheel bucket is described as an important engineering advance. The plant is described as perhaps the only shop of its kind still run by water power.","narrative":"Knight's Foundry and Shops is a group of simple wood-frame gabled and shed-roofed buildings at 13 Eureka Street in Sutter Creek, California. Samuel Newman Knight and his partner George Horne founded it in 1873, and it has remained on its original site, in operation, to the time of the nomination in 1974. The plant includes a foundry with two cupola furnaces, a pattern shop, a pipe-riveting shop, a blacksmith shop and a machine shop. Seven Knight turbines supply water power, and overhead line shafts, belts and pulleys drive the machinery. The foundry served Mother Lode gold mining by producing water wheels, stamp mills, hoisting and pumping machinery. Knight's cup-shaped impulse bucket, introduced around 1870, is credited with making foothill water power practical. Later work included scarifiers and large harbor dredgers made in 1898 and 1902. Knight owned and ran the business until his death in 1913. After a 1936 fire, the exterior walls were re-covered in corrugated iron sheeting.","period_of_significance":"19th and 20th Century (specific dates not given)","architect_builder":"Samuel Newman Knight and George Horne (founders)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Described as in continuous operation on its original site as of July 1974, with the original water-turbine power system unchanged; condition marked good and altered, with exterior walls re-covered in corrugated iron after a 1936 fire.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:32.225292-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/75000423.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000423/67b3290d1b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000423/67b3290d1b-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Bobak Ha'Eri","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2009-0724-CA-KnightFoundry.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Bobak Ha'Eri</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2009-0724-CA-KnightFoundry.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123858406","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Foundry","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1708896"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/amador-county/knights-foundry-and-shops-75000423/"}