Fairbanks Gold Rush

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Geological map of the Fairbanks District

The Fairbanks Gold Rush was a gold rush that occurred in Fairbanks Alaska , United States , in the early 1900s . Fairbanks was a city built largely on the passion of the gold rush in the early 20th century . Discovery and exploration continue to flourish in and around what is now Fairbanks.

history

Felice Pedronini (aka Felix Pedro)

Felice Pedronini spent years looking for gold. He tried to find gold in the streams and valleys of the Tanana Valley , where Fairbanks began , before it became the "American Klondike ". A trader and prospector named Elbridge Truman Barnette (1863-1933) and his wife Isabelle, as well as five workers and 130 tons of supplies were on August 26, 1901 on board the river steamer Lavelle Young to set up a trading post in Tanacross on the Tanana River . Low tide stopped the journey before Barnette could reach his destination. The Lavelle Young's co-owner , Captain Charles W. Adams, instead entered the Chena River , a tributary of the Tanana River, where shallow water stopped the ship and Adams refused to continue, so the Barnettes settled there.

Pedro Creek in Tanana, Alaska

On July 22, 1902, Pedro (his Hispanic name in America) discovered gold north of Fairbanks, on the stream now known as Pedro Creek , in the Alaska Interior region , which triggered the start of the Fairbanks gold rush and a mass rush. Barnette sent the Japanese immigrant Jujiro Wada (1872 / 5–1937) from Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku Island to Dawson City to spread the news that gold had been found so that Barnette could create a market for his goods. After Wada spread the news of the discovery of gold, many miners who had not already gone to the Nome Gold Rush in Nome, Alaska , traveled to Fairbanks. The prospectors soon found work for Barnette - by looking for gold for him in Fairbanks, prospecting and washing it out in sinks.

On July 22, 1910, about eight years after discovering gold north of Fairbanks, Felix Pedro died of an apparent heart attack at St. Joseph's Hospital in Fairbanks. However, Pedro's business partner Vincenzo Gambiani had doubts about this statement and instead claims that the deceased's widow poisoned him because he had never had heart problems before. After an exhumation on October 12, 1972 and transfer to Italy , the suspicions were confirmed after an autopsy and a hair sample that Pedroni was murdered in 1910.

The Alaska gold rush came to an end in 1911. The remaining gold was hidden deep beneath the frozen surface of the interior. In order to recover the gold, the surface of the earth had to be thawed, removed and cleaned in a washing system. A lot of money and even larger equipment were required to achieve this. The Fairbanks Exploration Company bought claims in an area of ​​30 by 50 km and brought gold dredgers on the Alaska Railroad in the 1920s . The excavators ruled the region for over 30 years and extracted 3.5 million ounces of gold, which corresponds to a current value (as of July 2020) of around 5.5 billion euros. The population of Fairbanks increased from 1,155 in 1920 to 2,101 in 1930. Ira B. Harkey (1918–2006) pointed out: “When the diggers stopped working, Fairbanks shrank again. The excavators remained in the places where they had chewed their last bites, perfectly preserved in the dry arctic air, woolly mammoths for later ages. "

Web links

Coordinates: 65 ° 0 ′ 26 ″  N , 147 ° 29 ′ 2 ″  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Gold Rush History of Fairbanks. In: fairbanks-alaska.com. Retrieved July 12, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Sonya Senkowsky: Fairbanks: Gold Rush history, weather extremes are part of the culture. In: Alaska.com. 2020, accessed on July 12, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b Fairbanks Hotels, Alaska Vacations & Group Tours: Fairbanks Alaska CVB. Retrieved July 12, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Tourist gold mines: Fairbanks, Juneau - tales of Alaska, gold and history, M. T. Schwartzman, Travel America, March 2002, (English)
  5. ↑ a b The Alaska Gold Rush in Fairbanks, In: golddaughters.com (English)
  6. ^ Italians in the Gold Rush and beyond: Felice Pedroni . March 13, 2005 (English, archive.org [accessed July 12, 2020]).
  7. ↑ Ira Harkey: Pioneer Bush Pilot . Ed .: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-28919-5 , pp. 99-101 (English).