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4.1.13.wavAlthough furs were still the leading industry in Alaska, mining was becoming increasingly more important. Inspired by the California gold discoveries in 1848, prospectors traveled north looking for gold. In the 1860s and '70s, several gold discoveries on Alaska's border with British Columbia brought thousands of prospectors into the region. Small gold discoveries near Sitka led to the organization of Alaska's first mining district on May 10, 1879.
A mining engineer, George Pilz, who was in charge of developing gold claims near Sitka, encouraged local Tlingit to search for gold. Chief Kowee of the Auk Tlingit, who lived near present-day Juneau, was among those who brought samples to him. Pilz sent prospectors Richard Harris and Joseph Juneau to find the source of Kowee's sample. In October 1880, Harris and Juneau found the area described by Kowee. The two men made Alaska's first important gold strike. Harris and Juneau staked claims for themselves and their backers.
Cigar box cover featuring Harris and Juneau
Hearing the news, several thousand prospectors and entrepreneurs rushed north from Portland and San Francisco to the area. A frontier mining town sprang up on the beach, becoming the first new town in Alaska since the American purchase. It was first named Harrisburg, then Rockwell, and finally Juneau.
Two years later, miners traveling to the Juneau gold strike found hard rock gold deposits on Douglas Island across the channel from Juneau. By spring, the miners had recovered placer gold worth $1,200 from the stream gravels. Ore samples were so promising that the investors organized the Alaska Mill and Mining Company. The company bought more claims on Douglas Island. Before the mines flooded in 1917, the company extracted $67 million worth of gold. At its peak, the company operated 900 stamps to crush the rock and extract gold and employed 2,000 people.
The discovery and development of the Douglas Island mine was the first in a series of major gold discoveries that attracted new settlers to various parts of Alaska. Over the next 20 years, mining would lead to a dramatic increase in the non-Alaskan Native population and create a new era in Alaska.
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