Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and her one and a half ton Chevy pickup, in which she hauled goods to the Willow Creek
Mining District. Another displays the 1939 effort to get a schoolteacher for the mine, spe-
cifically a male teacher (“Inasmuch as it is contrary to company policy to permit single
women in camp, and due to the fact that all of the children of school age are boys and that
in some cases rigid discipline may be necessary…”).
The “New” Bunkhouse, the “New” Mess Hall, the Assay Office and a few others are
neat in silver paint with bright red trim, but many of the buildings are falling down, and
much of the mine's past life lays in abandoned piles, ore bags, angle iron, drill bits, water
pipe, cogs and flanges. I walked into the Water Tunnel portal and peered down into the
beginnings of the main entrance to the mine. It was dark, bitterly cold, the walls were ooz-
ing water, and I realized that the light coming in through the broken board at my left
shoulder would be the last natural light my father saw on his way to work.
I followed the tram track outside to a line of miniature rail cars hooked together, a two
foot-by-four foot flatbed, a mucking machine, a GE electric locomotive, a one-ton ore car.
Each ore car was rolled out of the mine one at a time by trammers. The ore cars had no
brakes. The trammers, the interpretive sign says in a masterpiece of understatement, were
usually large men.
At the end of the track is a sign perched in front of a heap of tailings which reads,
“Over 125 grains of typical Independence gold fit on the head of a pin. Can you find the
gold in front of you?” and adds “Please leave it for others to see.” I took one look at the
pile of slag, twenty feet high and forty feet long, and realized just how fine was the gold
that came from the mountain in back of me. And I left the gold where it is.
My favorite artifact was a frantic letter written to the manager of the mine by C.L. Har-
rison of the home office on February 20, 1942, instructing the manager to get the most
gold out of the ground as fast as he can before the U.S. War Production Board declares
gold mining to be a non-essential industry. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor three
months before; you'd think Mr. Harrison would have suffered his epiphany sooner. There
is also an employee register in the assay office, listing two Adolphs and a lot of Scand-
inavian surnames that look ripped out of a present-day Anchorage phone book.
A marmot resides beneath the steps of the office/commissary building, from which he
essays to greet visitors with immense dignity. He may be a descendent of Henrietta and
