Donate:
Lost Sacramentos has secured fiscal sponsorship under a seasoned 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in California. We are presently raising funds to support urgent archaeological research into the ruins at Slater’s Addition. We plan a drone flight for the fall of 2026, generously conducted by Denise Jaffke. We are now raising seed funds to help facilitate a ground-penetrating radar survey in 2027. Data collected in these efforts will be combined into a three-dimensional model of the remains of Slater’s Addition – above and below ground.
We are still making arrangements to receive donations, but please contact research(at)lostsacramentos(dot)com if you would like to support this work.
Research:
Planned research will be strictly non-invasive due to the site’s location within a flood control structure. We have no plans for excavation. However, we are eagerly seeking interest from professional and student archaeologists, whose help is needed to catalog and survey dozens of features that currently protrude from the levee.
We also need help from historians and geographers. Many hands contributed to breaking Sacramento’s history, and many hands are needed to fix it. If you have research to contribute, please contact research(at)lostsacramentos(dot)com. While the Gold Rush and its Sacramento aftermath is this project’s focus, other periods, people and places are well worth exploring.
Periods: Modern historic literature about early California relies on a deeply flawed layer of for-profit production, particularly during the 1880s. A meta-history of this dynamic would be particularly helpful, starting with Bancroft’s self-proclaimed “Literary Industries.” We would also benefit greatly from understanding a wave of critical interest during the 1910s, most remarkably revealed by Phinney, Cate & Marshall’s Map of Sacramento City.
People: Lots of people had lots of bad experiences investing in Sacramento land. Surely some vented their frustrations in writing sent to loved ones back home; others no doubt took their written recollections when they finally gave up and left these troubled lands. Pioneer letters and journals stashed around the country will be a great help. Your ancestors’ mysterious gripes from Gold Rush Sacramento could provide a breakthrough!
Places: Sacramento seems to be an extreme case, but certainly similar dynamics have unfolded elsewhere. The “Lost Cause Mythology” is a well-known example of false history, which surely included episodes of dispossession suffered by freedpeople and their allies – most notably the populist revolt of the Farmers’ Alliance, which erupted on the west Texas plains and spread nationwide. Please get in touch if false history has happened in your neck of the woods.
