Part 2

In June the following year prospectors W. C. Blanker, Ben Blanker and Robert Barr, made the Discovery strike on Willow Creek. They staked their claims on June 17, 1914. On August 8 of 1914 Tom Plunkett filed a quartz claim at the head of Willow Creek. Summarily then, Wilson Creek was discovered in 1913 and had been mined since 1914. Willow Creek´s discovery was in 1914 and it had been mined since 1915. Wilson Creek and Disappointment Creek produced about $15,000 in 1914. The 1915 production figure of $25,000 included Wilson Creek, Disappointment Creek and four claims on Willow Creek.

In the Report of the Territorial Mine Inspector to the Governor of Alaska for year 1915 it indicated that the Marshall district was visited in the latter part of June of that year. One placer claim on Wilson Creek and one on Disappointment Creek was being operated by the opencut, ground sluicing, and pick and shovel methods. In this district the active prospecting and development work was being done on four claims on Willow Creek at the time of visit. Those were being worked by the open cut methods. One bench claim on Number 5 above Discovery on Elephant Creek, a tributary of Wilson Creek, was being worked by the underground drifting method of mining. The ground was frozen on the bench and the ground in the creek bottoms was thawed. Some development work was done on a quartz vein near the head of Willow Creek. A return of $80 per ton was received from the mill test of the ore.

There were 150 men in the district. The prospectors were naming creeks all around the area. Names like First Chance, Surprise, Hungry and Happy were identified. Other Creeks were first name oriented like Dads, John´s, Bob´s, and Glenn. Still others were surname oriented like, St. Amand, Edgar, Davis, McNeill and Joe Wise. The miners were spread out as far as the Kuyukutuk River. However, the gold output for the year was estimated at $10,000. This was $15,000 short of the actual production figured after the clean up. In the area called the Marshall District at that time the report showed who was the principal miner on which creek being worked. On the Disappointment Creek Discovery Claim, Al Rhodes was the principal miner. John Tillie mined on the Butterfly Bench of Willow Creek. A Mr. F. Bradley was on the Discovery Claim of Willow Creek. Up stream on Willow Creek from Discovery on No.1 above, Eddie Mack mined that year. No. 2 above Discovery, showed Charles Gay as the principal miner. Frank Waskey had control of No. 1 below Discovery on Willow Creek in 1915.

A year later in 1916 when Mr. Harrington visited the area in August no one was working the Wilson Creek basin and none of the cabins on Wilson Creek were occupied. A small dump had been taken out on Elephant Creek in the spring of 1916. Also early that summer Wilson Creek proper had two claims worked at the mouth of Disappointment Creek. He considered the largest population to be on Willow Creek. He figured that there were about 225 white people at Marshall and Willow Creek. He estimated about 120 of the native population were between Marshall and Andreafsky, now St. Mary´s. He mentioned that the figures should be considered with the conditions of both white and native people travelling for fishing, hunting and prospecting not being counted.

Up to the summer of 1916 the Marshall district had produced about $40,000.00. In 1916 gold production reached $270,000.00 showing that men and equipment were in place. This total for the year came mostly from the two claims on Wilson and Disappointment Creeks and the seven claims on Willow Creek.

The claims on Willow Creek were between numbers 2 below Discovery and number 5 above Discovery. Both of the mentioned claims had shovel in type operations. A power plant was working on number 2 above Discovery. On the upper halves of both number 1 above and Discovery Claim on Willow Creek a slack-line scraper was used for stripping and hoisting the material to the elevated sluice boxes. Sluicing as well did some stripping with water being diverted from the East Fork of Willow Creek. On the lower half of Discovery the sluice box arrangement was made to contain more of the fine gold. The arrangement was still a shovel in operation with one shift of men. The large boulders were consistently a problem to the miners.

According to a map drawn by Leif R. Ostnes the Bumblebee claim is the same as number 1 below Discovery. This claim had been worked since 1915 and by August of 1916 the operation was moving to number 2 below. A ditch from Slope Creek had been dug to furnish addition water so sluicing could be done in the boxes. Bedrock here was between 8 and 10 feet below ground level. On Number 1 above Discovery the bedrock was between 12 and 16 feet deep.

Mr. Harrington indicated that nuggets ranging from five to ten dollars in value were common but the larger nuggets worth twenty dollars were scarce. There are people who can look at a piece of gold and tell where in Alaska it had been mined. One such person looking at Willow Creek gold would see it as coarse and rough. At the time the gold assays on the area´s gold were not prevalent. One assay report that Mr. Harrington did see showed the value at $18.30 an ounce at a time when the normal was $17.00 and ounce.

Though lode mines had been staked around the Kuyukutuk basin and on Edgar Creek the only lode mining being done was at the head of Willow Creek. This was at the Tom Plunkett claim was known as the Arnold lode. The work there included cuts deep enough to show a vein between 6 and 12 inches in width in one area and higher up the slope another vein showing 4 to 8 inches wide.

By 1917 practically all $425,000 in gold production came from six claims on Willow Creek. In 1918 the production value was down to $150,000.00 and even lower in 1919 at $100,000.00.

This basically indicates all the rich placers that individual prospectors could mine were taken. The Bonanza gold as it is called left the harder to capture and retrieve fine gold. The mining operations would now take more equipment and deeper digging to get more of the precious metal. Alfred Brooks mentioned that World War One had created better business opportunities and higher wages in the continental U. S. A. Because of this there was also a loss of over a thousand men and a decrease of 173 working gold mines to the mining industry in Alaska between 1918 and 1919.

Miners were receiving about $5.00 a day with room and board in 1916 by 1917 it was increased to $6.00 a day with room and board.
The cooks, blacksmiths and hoistmen would receive $7.00 a day with room and board. This was comparable throughout interior Alaska. At the time the larger outfits were working two shifts of eight hours and the smaller employers were working one shift. The Native workers were mainly from Takshak and some from Ohogamiut. They were paid between $2.00 and $3.00 a day.

Other ways to receive money could be received from the chopping of wood. Cords of wood would cost about $5.00. However, getting that cord from the forested area to the mines had an additional charge of between $5.00 to $7.00 for labor and hauling. The mines would use the cordwood for production of steam, heating and cooking. Separate from the mines there was reindeer herding, trapping and fishing. There was also some work in the service industry like the hotels, saloons and stores.

Between 1914 and 1919 a total of 47,649 ounces of gold and 6,800 ounces of silver were mined from the Wilson and Willow creeks and their tributaries. Between 1914 and 1990 approximately 125,000 ounces of gold and silver were produced in the same areas. This shows that a little under two-fifths of the total gold production happened in the first six years and three quarters of that in 1916 and 1917. Alfred Brooks, Head of United States Geological Survey work in Alaska, wrote in his 1921 annual report regarding mining in 1919, productive mining in the Marshall district was nearly all confined to Willow Creek. About eight mines were operated in the district during the summer of 1919, employing some 56 men.

The miners were said to number around 3,000 in the early days of the stampede. This number has not been substantiated and under 1,000 is more likely. However, many times the miners who were considered the floating or prospecting population were not counted by the visiting government geologists who were earth scientists concerned primarily with the rocks and their formations. The miners who stayed brought with them the western civilization that had slowly been moving into western Alaska since the early 1800's.

Massercullermiut went from a fishing place to mining camp in a hurry. The stampeders built cabins, stores, saloons and dance halls. One saloon's foundation is still visible near the Soda Springs near the Willow Creek area. This spring made for convenient use of the effervescent water. The geologists found the Soda Spring´s water contained mainly iron and lime carbonates. The cinders of the free carbon dioxide had built up showing cones of material 4 to 6 feet high. Very little vegetation grew on the cinders but the solid footing afforded by them was a change from the soft tundra.

The country and western dances and dog races used for entertainment have lingered to this day. In talking with the elders Alex Evan related that the dog races held in Marshall were the only races in the lower Yukon River area. Also, people would walk from as far as Russian Mission to come to a dance in the mining camp. Speaking with former Magistrate Nora Guinn, she remembered Lars Ostnes teaching her to dance in Marshall. Today Marshall still hosts annual March dog races at the town's Winter Carnival. The dances held in present day Marshall still have the twang of country western tunes.

Placer mining methods and costs in Alaska by Norman L. Wimmler tells of the Marshall Mining District. Mr. Wimmler also reports that the principal placer operations were conducted on Willow Creek. For the year of 1924 the cost of transporting supplies from Marshall to the Willow Creek operations was 4 cents per pound in the summer and 2 to 2 1/2 cents in the winter. This equals $80.00 a ton for summer transportation and about $40.00 a ton in the winter. The average base rate on freight from Seattle to Marshall was about $35 per ton.

In comparison when Mr. Harrington visited the area in 1916 the cost of transporting supplies in the summer from Marshall to the Marshall Landing was $15.00 a ton. Another freight rate applied to get supplies to the mines. To the lower claims it was $30.00 a ton more. To the upper points on Willow Creek it was an additional $40.00 a ton. The freight rate in 1916 from Seattle to Marshall by way of St. Michael was $45.50 per ton for the general supplies. In the early days of mining the freight had to be taken across a lake from Marshall Landing. Spruce Creek flowed into the lake and the waters of the lake emptied into the Wilson Creek Slough. Later the road was built around the lake to the Landing.

The 1922 Report of the Territorial Mine Inspector indicated only placer mines were working on Willow, Disappointment, Elephant, Creeks. Buster and Stuyak Creeks near Russian Mission were had 5 and 7 men working them respectively. The principal mining being done on Willow Creek. There were about 25 men working there. There was one hydraulic outfit with 4 to 6 men and the rest working in five other operations ground sluicing and shoveling into sluice boxes. Some drilling and sinking of shafts had been done on lower Willow Creek. This prospect work showed good signs of future development. Disappointment Creek had five men working a hydraulic operation and one man hydraulicing on Elephant Creek.
  
In 1924 J.W. Hill and J.G. Johnston groundsluiced to within 4 feet of bedrock on Willow Creek. The remaining gravel and bedrock were being shoveled-in. There are numerous boulders and most of the bedrock had to be carefully cleaned, owing to crevices. Side pay was being mined, the main pay streak having formerly been worked out. Joseph Plein and one man “sniped” a small area of virgin ground about 20 feet deep on the Discovery Claim of Willow Creek, which had been covered by an old dump. Leo Moore and his wife groundsluiced and shoveled-in on No. 1 above Discovery on Willow Creek. Also on Willow Creek William Jamison was “sniping” on No. 2 above; P. Oliver mined on the Spider Fraction; Tony Jurack “sniped” on No. 3 above and N. F. Patten was “sniping” on side pay of No. 4 above.

Wilson Creek lies over the range from Willow Creek and empties into the Wilson Creek Slough several miles below Marshall Landing. No mining was being done on Wilson Creek proper in 1924, but was confined to its tributaries, Disappointment and Elephant Creeks. One or both of the Blankers and Andrew Edgar with a crew of 5 men hydraulicked on Disappointment Creek, using a small scraper for stacking the tailings. George Pilcher, working alone, hydraulic mined on Elephant Creek.

In 1925 very little placer mining activity is reported from the Marshall district. A few small open cut operations were conducted on Willow Creek. Also some work was being conducted on Disappointment and Elephant Creeks, tributaries on of Wilson Creek.

To Part 3

This series of community histories was a partnership between YukonAlaska.com, the Yukon Anniversaries Commission, the City of Whitehorse and several local historians.