Digital Bob Archive

Recreational use of the Gold Creek Valley began at an early date and has continued to the present. Juneau was primarily a mining town during its early years and even those residents who were not directly involved with mining were interested in what was going on.

Mining in the valley in the 1880s and 1890s was carried on only from May until November because of deep snow and lack of running water, but during the summer months a favorite pastime for Juneauites on weekends or evenings was a walk up Basin Road to see what was going on at the various mines.

In the earliest years the placer miners would be digging ditches and building flumes to carry water to their diggings, or shoveling gravel into their sluice boxes; later on, in Sliver Bow Basin, powerful and spectacular jets of water from hydraulic giants would replace the shovels. Half a dozen reduction mills, ranging from Spanish arastras through such patented devices as the Dodge Improved Pulverizer to the latest in stamp mills were strung through the valley from Ebner Falls to Silver Bow Basin. A great attraction for sightseers was the combined drainage and haulage tunnel the Nowell's Silver Bow Basin Mining Company drove through bedrock to tap the Basin 91 feet below its surface. Commenced in September, 1889, it was completed in January, 1891, and was the first major tunnel in the valley and was some 3000 feet long, 10 feet wide and 9 feet high.

Parties of visitors were escorted through the tunnel by a guide, but one young woman essayed to make a solo trip which was noted in the Juneau City Mining Record. On Sunday, May 10, 1891, Miss Ida M. Haines walked up Basin Road to the tunnel entrance, lighted her coal oil lantern and found her way through the long dark tunnel. At the upper end she ascended a ladder for 100 feet and came out in the Basin where the sun was shining on an unbroken expanse of snow that was four or five feet deep. The newspaper regarded her trip as a considerable feat.

Another center of interest for half a dozen or more years after the turn of the century was closer to town, in the first basin and within easy walking distance. There the Last Chance Hydraulic Mining Company, then its successor, the Jualpa Mining Company, proposed a placer operation to recover gold from the immense quantity of gravel in the basin.

Both companies poured untold thousands of dollars into the project, but nothing seemed to go right for either company. After numerous delays, an enormous wooden flume was finished to carry off the waters of Gold Creek, only to have a large section of it smashed to bits by a rock fall from Mount Juneau, as told last week. That was replaced, only to have much of the flume washed away by a freshet. Then it was discovered that enormous boulders were liberally mixed with the gravels.

To move the boulders a derrick was ordered from the Joshua Hendy Machinery Company, with a mast 90 feet high and a boom 90 feet long. On its first test, with a crowd of spectators, the guy cables snapped and the whole derrick collapsed. It was never used.