| Summary: | This photograph is made of three panels. The John J. Sesnon Co. and the North American Transportation & Trading Co. can be seen in lower left. The steeple of Old St. Joseph's Church can be seen in the center of the far right panel. Caption on image: The City of Nome Alaska. Goetze. PH Coll 304.1 The John J. Sesnon Co. and North American Transportation and Trading Co. were mainly involved in lightering, the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes, usually between a barge and a bulker or oil tanker. Lightering is undertaken to reduce a vessel's draft in order to enter port facilities which cannot accept very large ocean-going vessels. Sesnon's cableway for landing freight at Nome was, at the time, the largest cable way of its kind in the world. Originally a Catholic Church, St. Joseph's is the only remaining example of large churches from the gold rush days. It was built in 1901 and its electrically lit cross was used as a beacon for travelers approaching Nome. It was closed in 1945 due to high heating costs and a declining population, and today is used as a multipurpose public building.
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