Northwest History. Alaska, Mines & Mining -- General. United States.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1932
• Subjects: Alaska gold mining; depression; medal; Seattle; Yukon; gold-bearing ore; industrial depression; Nuka Bay district; Alaska; mineralized territory; Tom Babcock; placer mining; natural barriers; Seward; Alaska Agricultural College; Fairbanks; Earnest Patty; Tom Downey; Dawson; Kenal Peninsula; Suny Fox; Fred Johanson; E. E. Smith; Montana; Colorado; Idaho; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Liard; Pacific; Liard River
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/101189

Alaska Gold Mining Revives: Depression Offers A New Impetus In Search For Precious Medal. ALAKSA GOLD MINING REVIVES Depression Offers a New Impetus In Search for Precious/Medal. By E. Q. Anderson (Associated Press Staff Writer) SEATTLE, June 29.—{IP}—What gold miners cadi the "depression-proof industry" has received new impetus by the discovery in Alaska and the Yukon in the past few weeks of bodies of gold-bearing ore which would stand comparison with the best of the days of '98. History, the mining men say, shows that general industrial depressions have always stimulated gold development, both because of a strong market for the metal and the fact that scores of unemployed men go, into the hills seeking the ore. The recent discoveries hi the Nuka Bay district of Alaska, by Tom Babcock, pioneer of '98, of ore reported by him to be worth $50,000 a ton, are the result, in part, of a number of years prospecting in that highly- mineralized territory. The finds being made in Alaska today are by men hi the "rosy fifties," who have had years of experience. Some of them are men who have prospected both in the territory and the states for years, and who, finding that placer mining is not what it used to be, have gone to the lodes. Again they are old-timers who made their pile in Alaska, came to the states, and dropped it. Now as some of them said, they are going back to properties which they abandoned years ago as not worth the trouble of working. Claims on the Alaska coast, where Nuka Bay is situated, have also been neglected in the past in favor of lands in the interior. They were all hard to reach because of natural barriers. Now the airplane has done away with all that. It need to take a man 60 days to mush in to his claim by dogteam, and then he was only able to work a month before he had to leave because of the approach of winter. In 1932, he can make that trip in a few hours. Prospectors have been working the JNuka Bay region, only about 60 miles from Seward for the past six years and only last summer there were 200 "hard rock" men in that area. The decrease in copper mining has also sent scores of men in that industry into the gold fields. Alaskans attribute much of the facility of mining in Alaska now to the school of mines at the Alaska Agricultural College in Fairbanks, of which Earnest Patty is dean. Instead of waiting for reports en samples sent to the states or hiring a mining engineer at $1,009 monthly to tell them whether it was worth while to continue work on their claims, they send their ore to the school of mines for analysis. Tom Babccck and his partner, Tom Downey, who call their claim the Sunny Fox, are no novices in the game. Babcock spent 11 years in Dawson; Downey spent many years in Montana, Colorado and Idaho. "Watch the Nuka Bay section of the Kenai Peninsula," Babcock said last February. "It is coming in fast, and in a few years will, by its gold production, astonish many of the wiseacres who with pick, aneroid, a fat salary and a supreme ego came there to pass expert opinion on its many promising properties." Now Fred Johanson and E. E. Smith, both old timers, have found a ledge, exposed when a mountain lake swept away a side of the peak, which they estimate contains 300,000,000 tons of ore assaying $3 to the ton. Further details as to the correctness of their estimate are as yet unavailable. And there is also a stampede to the Liard river section in the southern Yukon where placer gold deposits have been described as much better than the average.