Digital Bob Archive

MAY 23, 1889-The wagon road to the Gold Mountain Mining Company property at the head of the Basin is now completed and is said to have cost the Eastern Alaska Mining & Milling Company $10,000. Some 25,000 or 30,000 feet of lumber has been hauled over it and the 10-stamp mill for the company arrived on the Ancon and will be hauled over the new road.

Fifteen mechanics, carpenters and masons are now at work on the 11,000-foot aerial tramway for the Nowell Gold Mining Company. It is of the German system and is expected to deliver 20 tons of ore an hour from the mine at the head of the basin to the mill.

MAY 30, 1889-Last Tuesday the ledge was tapped on the Bear?s Nest property at a distance of 1,052 feet from the tunnel mouth, within a few feet of the estimate made by Mr. Garside when he surveyed the tunnel. Superintendent I. B. Hammond and a crew of men have been busy taking up the rails of the surface tram at the Alaska Union mine, also on Douglas Island, and transporting them to the mill site of the Bear?s Nest. They will be used for a tram to carry lumber from the sawmill to the quartz mill site.

The steamers Ancon, Santa Cruz and Islander have all been in port this past week.

Benjamin Behrends is erecting a residence on Fifth Street west of Main.

H. E. Heppner is working his placer ground on Gold Creek below the Basin. Last year he drove a tunnel to tap a gravel deposit and the yield was very satisfactory during a short test. The claim will be worked to full capacity this year.

The Huntington quartz mill Richard Johnson placed on the Northern Light claim at Berners Bay last year was carried away during the winter by a snowslide.

Coon, Campbell & Company are rigging a derrick to be used in their placer operations in the Basin. It has a capacity of 20 tons.

K. Valentine has moved his gunsmithing and manufacturing jewelry establishment into his new building on the waterfront opposite the Sitka Trading Company.

C. E .Coon, the druggist, has taken charge of the post office and moved it from the Stitt Building on the waterfront to a commodious building on Third Street behind his drug store.

Fr. John Althoff of the Catholic Church has purchased two lots in Douglas and intends to build a church and hospital there.
The Alaska Gold Company?s railroad will be completed from the Alaska Mill & Mining Company wharf in a few days. The locomotive arrived on the Elder.