Digital Bob Archive

Lode mining claims have names, as do ships and newspapers. Placer mining claims are usually assigned numbers, running up or down a creek or valley from the discovery claim.

I haven't investigated when men began the custom of giving names to mining claims, but it was long before there were any lode discoveries in Alaska. But since it began, thousands of names have been given to claims throughout the West, including Alaska, and hundreds of prospectors must have scratched their heads to think up new and original names for the lodes they were putting claims stakes on.

Because what is known as the Juneau Gold Belt is heavily mineralized, hundreds of lode claims were entered in the record books here, not all of them with new names. One tendency, here and elsewhere, was to name a lode discovery for an older and profitable claim in California or Nevada or some other mining district. Examples are Bonanza, Yellow Jacket, Ophir, Belcher, Bullion and Crown Point. Other lodes were given rich-sounding names which may or may not have been used before: Golden Crown, Golden Alaska, Jeweler, Opulence, Golconda, Legal Tender and Paymaster, to name a few.

The first lode claim staked in the Gold Creek Valley by Joe Juneau and Dick Harris was the Fuller Lode, named for one of the men who had grubstaked them. Later they staked the Pilz Lode for another backer. Many of the men who first staked claims in this area were from the Navy at Sitka and they often used names of Navy ships: Jamestown, Tuscarora, Hancock, Pinta, and Portsmouth.

Nearly every state in the Union had a claim named for it in this area, as well as a number of cities. The Civil War was in the recent past when prospecting began here, and that brought about the names Bull Run, General Sherman, U.S. Grant, Rebellion and Gettysburg. Some of the prospectors were poor spellers. \"French Pete\" Erussard staked the \"Parris\" lode on Douglas Island, while E.M. Lesikatos, one of a group known as \"the Greek boys,\" located the \"Ackroplis\" up at Berners Bay. Dick Willoughby, one of the more colorful characters in the camp, named one of his claims the \"Mountain Goffer.\" Dick had taken some $60,000 out of Lowee Creek in the Cariboo district of British Columbia, so he named his first claim at Juneau the Lowee. Somehow the claim didn't pan out. He also named two lodes at Funter Bay the Pungle Up (a synonym for ante up) and the Pungle Down.

Claim names ran all the way from optimism to deep despair, and some hinted at stories untold: Long Search, Perseverance, Littlehope, Matchless, Impregnable, Big Bubble, Despondent, Horse Shoe, Pride of the Mountain, Jubilee, Lost Charlie Ross, Lucky Cuss, Hidden Treasure, Last Chance, Snow Slide Monster, Royal Flush, No Good, and Keep Cool are just a few of them.

I guess my favorite, though, is the Lost Lunch claim, which was staked down near Point Bishop.