The Library of Congress has acquired a drawing and accompanying lithograph of Yosemite Falls created by Gold Rush-era artist Thomas Almond Ayres in 1855 Library of Congress conservator Heather Wanser works on the Yosemite drawing created by Thomas Almond Ayres in 1855. Shawn Miller / Library of Congress In 1849, Thomas Almond Ayres left his home in New Jersey and headed off to California to make his fortune in the gold mines. But once he got there, Ayres changed course, focusing primarily on art rather than mining. “He must have found that in his case a brush was a more profitable tool than a pick, for at the end of a year he returned to San Francisco, his portfolio bulging past closing with sketches of Gold Rush towns and the mining country,” wrote Jeanne Van Nostrand in the  California Historical Society Quarterly in 1941. Ayres used his creative skills to sketch some of  California’s most iconic landscapes , including several sites in Yosemite Valley.…