Digital Bob Archive

14 July 1978 issue

FEBRUARY 19, 1915-The ore reduction mills of the Alaska Gastineau Mining Company at Thane were started today for the first time. They have been under construction for two years and cost a million and a half dollars. The plant is expected to grind 2,000 tons of ore in each 24 hours to begin with and when all elements are completed will have a maximum capacity of 2,500 tons. It is expected to be running at full capacity by midsummer. Yesterday a train of 38 cars brought ore to the mill through the two mile tunnel from Perseverance. The trip took one hour. Bartlett L. Thane is manager of the big mine.

MAY 20, 1903-The Australian ballot was used for the first time in Juneau in yesterday?s election of six city councilmen, three school board members and a city magistrate. The new form of ballot worked very well and out of 371 cast only four were thrown out as incorrectly marked.

NOVEMBER 21, 1889-The Harris Mining District has recently been receiving some publicity in the national press but it is not the kind that local mining men desire. In fact, it is quite the opposite. A long article in ?The Engineering and Mining Journal? or recent date discusses the Bear Nest property on Douglas Island and, more specifically, the sale of the property to a group of English investors. The sale is more than a little tinged with scandal.

To review the history of the property: the Bear Nest on the Douglas side of the Paris Lode, which is the main ore body of the Treadwell mine, was staked on June 20, 1881, by Henry Borien. He named the claim because he ran into a passel of bears while setting his location stakes. Borien soon sold the claim and it changed hands several times and finally came in to the ownership of five men, all well known here and all of whom appear to have been more or less involved in the sale mentioned above. The five are:

Martin W. Murray who came to Juneau early in 1881, staked mining claims and built one of the town?s first wharves. He also owned other property including a business building on Seward Street.

James Treadwell, a brother of John Treadwell who originally purchased the Paris lode claim from ?French Pete? Erussard and started what is now known as the Treadwell mine. James worked for his brother at the mine at times.

Newman A. Fuller, one of the men who originally grubstaked Joe Juneau and Richard Harris. He had mining interested in Gold Creek Valley and in 1882 he went to work for John Treadwell and is now assistant superintendent at the Alaska Mill & Mining Company which operates the Treadwell property.

Captain James Carroll of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company who was also an early-day property owner in Juneau. Juneau and Harris located a lode claim in his name near Silver Bow Basin on October 12, 1880, and he has been interested in other mining property. He also built and operated a wharf, still known as the Carroll wharf, south of the main part of town. Captain Carroll has been implicated in the smuggling of opium aboard vessels under his command.

F. O. Downing, purser for the Pacific Coast Steamship Company who often sailed with Captain Carroll. It is said, however, that he had little connection with the Bear Nest sale.

Earlier this year the five owners commenced active development work on the property. At the end of March a Mr. Grant arrived with a gang of 17 men to erect a mill building and install a 120-stamp mill. Frank Hammond, mining engineer, was hired as superintendent and a new tunnel was started. A little later the work on the mill was suddenly stopped and there were rumors that no ore of paying quality had been found. Despite denials by the owners, this cast a damper on the local mining community, coming as it did so soon after the failure of the Alaska Union mine, also on Douglas Island.

By last summer it was reported that the new tunnel was in about 200 and that about 30 feet of it was in quartz averaging $5 to the ton. At the same time, Superintendent Hammond left the company and one of the owners, Mr. Murray, went to London, reportedly to sell the mine. The prospective buyers sent three different men from England to examine the property. They were R. M. Brereton, T. C. Gregory and E. J. Dowling. All three found rich pieces of ?float? ore around the mine and were shown drill holes from which cores were said to have been taken. They were also shown cores which they tested and in which they found good values. All three apparently reported favorably on the property.

According to the ?Engineering and Mining Journal,? the English group paid $650,000 in cash plus some $300,000 to $350,000 in bonds to the owners. Another source reports that the new owners formed a company and sold a million dollars worth of stock in London.

It now turns out that a man had been hired to scatter bits of Treadwell ore around the Bear Nest before the experts arrived, and that the cores shown to them had actually been taken from the Treadwell ore body under the direction of Mr. Fuller. In plain language, the Bear Nest had been ?salted? for the benefit of the experts, and it is also said that the experts themselves were well salted with a few bottles of Hennessey before they made their examination.

Just what the next course will be, or whether it will involve legal action, is not known here. The entire unfortunate affair casts a pall over our local mining industry just at a time when it was beginning to move ahead. The Treadwell property recently changed hands and the new owners are seeking financing to expand both the mine and the mill, and several mine owners along Gold Creek are looking for financial aid for expansion.