Digital Bob Archive

Chilkoot Trail Washout Takes Heavy Toll

News of the Gold Camp - 11/14/1980

SEPTEMBER 11, 1987-First and Second Streets in Douglas are now being planked.

I. B. Hammond, now a resident of Portland, Oregon, where he manufactures mining machinery is visiting Juneau this week. He is a mining engineer and was associated with several local properties in earlier years, including the Bear?s Nest on Douglas Island which he attempted to develop into a paying mine.

SEPTEMBER 18, 1897-J. Montgomery Davis came down from Skagway on the Al-ki and reports that things are booming in that camp.

SEPTEMBER 25, 1897-Fred Hoyt, the Yukon mail carrier who left Circle City on August 18 over the trail via Dawson, arrived here Tuesday, the 21st. Mail was very light this trip, only two letters being addressed to Juneau and 35 to other points. He reported that Circle City is nearly depopulated now.

William Webster of Juneau was one of the lucky ones who managed to escape a washout on the Chilkoot Trail on the 18th, but he lost his entire outfit including his money. Water from heavy rains during the previous week had been trapped behind a glacier high on the mountainside near Sheep Camp. When a portion of the glacier broke away, a wall of water 300 feet wide and up to 12 feet deep swept down the mountain and then on down the Dyea River where a bridge built by John Healy was carried away. Several people lost their lives and many lost all their goods.

OCTOBER 16, 1897-Willis Thorp, Juneau businessman, has returned to Haines Mission with his herd of beef cattle. He was attempting to take the herd over the Dalton Trail to Fort Selkirk but ran into a heavy storm at the summit and lost several head of cattle and horses. His son, Ed, with a smaller herd, had crossed the summit before the storm struck and will try to get through to Dawson this fall.

Juneau men William Rudolph, Fred Markus and R. Pocco returned Saturday from Lake Bennett where they had been since spring. They set up a small sawmill on the lake and cut about 200,000 feet of lumber during the summer. The lumber was used to build boats and barges for use on the Yukon River.

OCTOBER 23, 1897-Messrs. Olds and Orton are having a new addition built to their Occidental Hotel on Front Street.

OCTOBER 30, 1897-The sloop Alcedo arrived Wednesday from Frederick Sound with 16,000 pounds of halibut which were received and shipped to the Seattle Fish Company in 36 boxes.