Treadwell Gold: An Alaska Saga of Riches and Ruin

286 Pages·2010·6.66 MB·English

by  Sheila Kelly

Treadwell Gold
q
An AlAskA sAGA of Riches And Ruin

sheilA kelly
University of Alaska Press
Fairbanks
© 2010 University of Alaska Press
All rights reserved
University of Alaska Press
P.O. Box 756240
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240
ISBN 978-1-60223-075-0 (cloth), 978-1-60223-118-4 (paper), 978-1-60223-102-3 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the cloth edition:
Kelly, Sheila, 1942–
Treadwell gold : an Alaska saga of riches and ruin / by Sheila Kelly.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60223-075-0 (alk. paper)
1. Douglas Island (Alaska)—History, Local—20th century. 2. Treadwell
(Alaska)—History. 3. Extinct cities—Alaska—Douglas Island. 4. Douglas
Island (Alaska)—Gold discoveries. 5. Douglas Island (Alaska)—Social life and
customs—20th century. 6. Gold miners—Alaska—Douglas Island—History—
20th century. 7. Gold mines and mining—Alaska—Douglas Island—
History—20th century. I. Title.
F912.D75K45 2010
979.8'4—dc22
2009035477
Cover design by Dixon Jones
This publication was printed on acid-free paper that meets the minimum
requirements for ANSI / NISO Z39.48–1992 (R2002) (Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials).
We gratefully acknowledge the Rasmuson Foundation for a grant to support the
publication of this book.
To Raymond, Marion, and Honorah Kelly
and all the children who grew up in Treadwell

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contents
Prologue vii
inTRoducTion
Treadwell at its Peak 1
chAPTeR one
catalyst for Alaska development 21
chAPTeR Two
Treadwell Mines : The story in Brief 35
chAPTeR ThRee
An unusual company Town 53
chAPTeR fouR
company family through Boom and Bust 69
chAPTeR five
The Big hoistman’s Boisterous family 89
chAPTeR six
Tough Grind of the hard-Rock Miner 103
chAPTeR seven
view from the Mansion 115
v
vi Treadwell Gold
chAPTeR eiGhT
labor Troubles and the western federation of Miners 133
chAPTeR nine
The Tlingit: Ancient culture Meets Modern industry 145
chAPTeR Ten
fourth of July’s Grand celebration 159
chAPTeR eleven
double Threat of wind and fire 169
chAPTeR Twelve
intimations of disaster 181
chAPTeR ThiRTeen
The cave-in: Rumblings Become a Roar 187
chAPTeR fouRTeen
A Town Brought down 199
chAPTeR fifTeen
Reduced to Ashes 213
ePiloGue
The Place, the People, the Gold 221
Afterword 237
Timeline 239
Acknowledgements 245
endnotes 247
Bibliography 257
index 261
q
Prologue
who has heard of Treadwell? The boom and bust of these
great gold mines in southeast Alaska is a gripping story, an im-
portant part of American history, and a formative part of my own
family. But mention the name, and most people draw a blank.
As a child, I knew Treadwell as an obscure reference my father would
make when telling his six children about how things were in the “old”
days when he and his two sisters, Marion and Honorah (Honey), were
growing up in Alaska during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
My first visit to Alaska was in 1958, when I was sixteen. I spent an
unforgettable summer in Ketchikan with Aunt Honey and Uncle Chester
(Archie) Archbold, who was assistant superintendent of the South Ton-
gass National Forest. I was there when President Eisenhower signed the
Alaska Statehood Act on July 7, 1958, so I was certified as an honorary
citizen of the state. I had already fallen in love with the place, not sur-
prising considering I was just one generation removed from the pioneer
Kelly family that had settled there in 1899. But I would not return until
decades later.
After my father and his sister Honey died in the late 1970s, their
surviving sister, Marion, began regaling me with amazing tales. I wished
then that I had paid more attention to Dad’s stories that started, “When
I was a boy . . .” Later, as the twentieth century (and my own half century)
drew to a close, I became hungry for family history. I knew ours happened
to include a unique American frontier experience, the dramatic story of
a hard-rock gold-mining town.
The Kelly hometown was Treadwell, Alaska, on Douglas Island across
Gastineau Channel from Juneau. While my family history intrigued me,
vii
viii Treadwell Gold
RUSSIA
Nome
OTFE RARLAITSOKRAYF aYirbuaknoksn RiverDUNITaEwD CSATsANToAEDSnA City
Klondike R.
TERYRUIKTOONR Y
Chilkoot
Pass
Skagway
Treadwell
SOUTHEAST ALASKA Skagway
ay Haines COBLRUITMISBHIA
B
Glacier
DOUGLAS Inside
ISLAND Passage
steamship
Juneau
route
Treadwell
Vancouver, B.C.
Victoria, B.C.
Sitka ADISMLIARNADLTY Seattle UNITCEADN SATDAATES
Portland
Wrangell
San Francisco
Ketchikan
0 300 miles
0 500 kilometers
Prologue ix
what pulled me deeper into the story was learning that over the course
of four decades, starting in 1882, this little town achieved fame as the
largest hard-rock gold-mining operation in the world, creating far more
wealth than the flash-in-the-pan Klondike Gold Rush. As early as 1890,
the first U.S. Census taken in Alaska proclaimed that Treadwell, “as
the first enterprise to attract large capital, [marked] the turning point in
Alaska’s fortunes.”1
My hours of conversation with Aunt Marion, along with a one-
hundred-page hand-written memoir left by Honey, launched me on what
became a multidecade quest. Based on the Kelly sisters’ recollections, I
published an article, “A Childhood in Treadwell,” in the Alaska Journal
in 1985 and a second article, “Honey and Arch, An Alaskan Love Story,”
in 1986. Over several years, I went to Juneau and scoured the files of lo-
cal newspapers, the Douglas Island News and the Alaska Daily Empire,
searching for details about my family. I tracked down, interviewed, and
shared photo albums with people who had lived in Treadwell during
that time, including Irving Anderson, son of the Swedish hoist operator
August Anderson, and Robert Kinzie Jr. and Philip Bradley Jr., sons of
superintendents. At first, I wanted to know only what they could tell me
about my father’s family.
Then something happened. Maybe it was those hours I spent in the
Alaska State Library immersed in the treasure trove of fine historical
photos of Treadwell taken by well-known Alaska photographers W. H.
Case, H. H. Draper, Lloyd Winter, Percy Pond, and E. A. Hegg. Their
black-and-white masterpieces showed the mud-smudged miners at work
half a mile down in the dark tunnels, or dressed up in suits and seated
five hundred strong for a fine meal at the boardinghouse. I was enthralled
with the artistic quality of photographs of giant boilers and hoists. I
smiled at the images of workers’ clapboard cottages and the families in
their Sunday best for Fourth of July festivities. The portraits of Tlingit
Indian women selling their exquisite woven baskets at steamship docks
fascinated me. The scenes of the spectacular mine cave-in shocked and
saddened me. As I pursued my research and heard stories firsthand from
my family and their friends who lived through it all, I began to identify
with the place and the people. I felt pride in the fact that Treadwell is
credited with opening up development, and even tourism, on the great