110-year-old building returns home to Chena
Old Chena townsite building as it was being prepped for the return trip to Chena In early 1901, months before E.T. Barnette’s party landed on the bank of the Chena River, George Belt...
Category: mining history
George Cheever Hazelet helped develop Valdez and Cordova
Hazelet’s house in Cordova as it looks today George Cheever Hazelet was a resident of Omaha, Nebraska when news of the Klondike gold strike reached the contiguous United States in 1897. Even though he...
Little Eska engine a reminder of Matanuska Valley’s coal-mining past
A small industrial locomotive in front of the railroad depot in Palmer is a reminder of the Matanuska Valley’s coal-mining past. Engine No. 5 is a narrow-gauge Baldwin 0-4-0T saddletank locomotive. The 0-4-0 represents...
The ebb and flow of mining at Kantishna is reflected in Eldorado Creek’s history
The Comstock Cabin on Eldorado Creek in 1994. This cabin was built in the mid 1950s. Kantishna’s Eldorado Creek, as opposed to the 26 other Eldorado Creeks listed in the “Dictionary of Alaska Place...
Chistochina area has brief but rich gold rush history
This historic cabin is one of the few remnants of the Chistochiona Trading Post, which burned down in 1999 Gold was discovered along the Chistochina River in late 1898 by argonauts originally headed for...
Livengood Placers and its vagabond gold dredge
Warehouse at Livengood constructed by Livengood Placer, Inc as it looks today The building depicted in the drawing is an old warehouse near Livengood. Of heavy timber-frame construction, it has ship-lap siding (except for...
Clarence Berry had major impact on Interior Alaska mining history
Berry Camp along Eagle Creek at about Mile 103 of the Steese Highway Clarence Berry was one of the “Kings of the Klondike,” that small cohort of early gold-seekers who made fortunes in the...
Hi-Yu Mine was one of the Fairbanks area’s most successful hard-rock gold mines
The Hi-Yu mine as it looked in the 1990s About 25 miles northeast of Fairbanks sits one of the area’s most successful lode mines, now abandoned and decaying. The Hi-Yu mine is located...
Old Fairbanks Exploration Company camp still an important part of Chatanika, Alaska
Chatanika Gold Camp as it looked in 1994 On a southeast-facing hill just north of Mile 27.5 of the Steese Highway sits Chatanika Gold Camp. The camp used to be the Fairbanks Exploration Company’s...
The changing fortune of Old Chatanika, Alaska
Old Chatanika cabin in 1994 In 1902 Felix Pedro washed gold out of Cleary Creek about 25 miles northeast of Fairbanks. Relatively few miners worked the creeks near Fairbanks in 1902, and it wasn’t...
