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Photo credit: Copper Rail depot website
All About Stephen Birch
By: E.I.
On September 5-7, 2023, Academy Charter School seventh graders went to Kennecott, Alaska, for a class field trip. While they were there, they took a tour of mill town and learned a lot about Stephen Birch, who was responsible for its creation.
Stephen Birch was born on March 24, 1873, in Brooklyn, New York. He eventually became the president of the Kennecott Copper Mine but that’s not where all of this started; it all started in 1898 when he heard about the gold rush so he came up to Alaska, according to Michel, a St. Elias mill tour guide
He lived in Valdez, Alaska, for a few years. He got a letter in 1898 that said he could go on an expedition to explore more of Alaska with the Abercrombie expedition. The first part of the trip was very hard because they had to ride on Valdez glacier, Lt.Lowe wrote about the hard ride and he wrote, “By zigzagging I was enabled to find points along the crevasses narrow enough for the horses to jump over. In many places the snow covered the ice, and the crevasses were not discovered until some of the horses had gotten a leg or two in them. Every horse managed to get one of two legs in a number of times, and they practically hung by their ‘eyebrows.’ At times it required the prompt and united efforts of the entire party to rescue them. After some floundering the expedition managed to get through, but we had not an inch too much snow under us," according to the Kennecott copper mine website.
In Spring of 1899, Stephen Birch returned to Alaska to explore the Copper River again. On July 22nd, 1900, Clarence Warner and Jack Smith found a deposit of copper in the Wrangell mountains. They called it “Bonanza”. They went back to Valdez to file mining claims that Birch eventually bought. In 1901, he went up to look at the copper himself and he couldn't believe his eyes. He went to New York to raise money so he could buy more claims. He ended up buying 21 claims of the Bonanza, according to the Kennecott copper mine website.
Map courtesy of: Explore Alaska, McCarthy/Kennecott
Birch died a millionaire in California in,1940, according to the website, Stephen Birch. Lots of people all around the world remember him and will never forget what he did during his life.
Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
In 1903, Birch created the Alaska Copper and Coal Company. It was very difficult to get supplies to Alaska so Birch started looking into more options to get supplies there faster. In 1904, he considered building a railroad. He searched for investors and in 1906 Daniel Guggenheim invested in the Copper and Coal Company. Guggenheim joined with JP Morgan’s bank and together they formed the Alaskan Syndicate which would help build their railroad and mill town.
While they were working on the railroad, Birch started homesteading in Chitina, Alaska. By 1908, the railroad reached close enough to the copper that Birch was able to send ore samples in boats which carried them to the train. On April 8th, 1911, when the railroad was finished, Birch was able to send the first copper load to Cordova, worth two hundred fifty thousand dollars. On April 12th, 1915, Birch was made president of the company.
In 1938, after thirty five years, the company closed. The company made $200 million in profit. This is about $7,310,142,857 in today's money.
In its heyday, the Kennecott Copper Company was the largest corporation in the nation, according to St. Elias Guides and the Kennecott Copper mine.
Photo credit: http://4.bp.blogspot.com
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