Treve Gibson (1 results)

No binding. Condition: Fine. Autograph Manuscript, c. 1915, on Hotel Cadillac (Los Angeles, CA) stationery, 59 pp. 6 x 9 1/2 in. With six Phoenix Consolidated Mining Co. stock certificates issued to Gibson in October and November 1896 for a total of 24,000 shares. Four are signed by President and lumberman James E. Poupore; two are signed by Vice President and broker Charles D. Rand; and all six are signed by Secretary and physician Milton W. Bruner, all of British Columbia. Also with a later 57-page typescript that includes more detail of Gibsons mining career, c. 1956. A revised version of the story presented in the manuscript appears on pages 9 to 25 of the typescript. There is no word in our language which will grip the listener's attention quicker, than the word, gold. No story is more likely to arouse the spirit of adventure than an authentic report of the discovery of new and exceptionally rich goldfields.A reminiscence of the early stages of the Nome Gold Rush (1899-1909) written by a mining engineer with fascinating and sometimes tragic details about his voyage to Alaska, wildlife, native Americans, traveling along the wild rivers, and the raw and curious world inhabited by miners hoping to strike it rich. Historical BackgroundBetween 1897 and 1899, an estimated 100,000 prospectors traveled to the Klondike region of the Yukon territory in northwestern Canada, near the border with Alaska. Most prospectors traveled by water to Skagway, Alaska, moved over the Chilkoot or White Pass trails, and floated down the Yukon River. At the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, the boom town of Dawson City grew from 500 to 30,000 people in two years to supply the prospectors.In the summer of 1899, prospectors discovered gold near Nome in western Alaska, and many of the miners in the Yukon moved to the new goldfields. During this later phase of the Alaska Gold Rush, from 1899 to 1909, prospectors initially found gold lying on the beach at Nome. Then they dug on the beaches and then at points farther from the shore, where prehistoric beaches had been covered by sand and gravel deposits. At the height of the gold rush, Nome had more than 20,000 residents, making it the largest city in Alaska. Even Wyatt Earp owned and operated a saloon there from 1899 to 1901.As the representative of a syndicate of American investors, Treve Gibson used his mining experience in Montana and British Columbia to explore goldfields far from the coast in Alaska.After an early voyage from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands, Gibson's ship was delayed by ice. After a week in port and nearly two weeks trapped in the Bering Sea, an ice-cutter made a path for the stranded ship, and Gibson arrived at Nome nearly in June, 1900, a month after he had planned. He was one of 18,000 people arriving that month.To examine another prospective goldfield, he departed from St. Michael on the west coast, travelling by steamer 400 miles up the Yukon River. After another 250 miles up the Koyukuk River, the steamer could go no further because of low water, and Gibson and his companion canoed the remaining 300 miles. Finding the field too poor for his syndicate to mine profitably, Gibson returned downriver by dugout canoe, and caught a passing steamer back to St. Michael. Along the way, he witnessed the devastation of the influenza and measles epidemic on the native population and buried an Athapaskan Indian chief.Gibson's memoir ends with his return to Nome, where he spent the next dozen years supervising the mining of millions of dollars of gold.Treve M. Gibson (1869-1958) was born in Hannibal, Missouri. In the 1880s, Gibson was involved in copper mining near Butte, Montana. Gibson then became involved with silver and lead mines in southeastern British Columbia. In 1889, he was living in the Washington Territory, when the governor of Kentucky deputized him to search for and arrest Johnse Hatfield for the murder of Alifair McCoy in January 1888, a brutal episode in t. (See website for full description). Autograph Manuscript.…