The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, June 27, 1951, Page 2

PAGE TWO Let’s Go West Fienseriee Bandannas — Bright Colors — $1.15 to $1.55 Holster and Gan Sels — $3.95 1o $8.95 B M. Behends Co v s KIDDIES wowgirl Suits - Eag'e on the Yukon was once the mest important town in Interior Alaska, but like many another Gold Rush town, its importance has dwindled through the years. Sizes 2 to 6 Assorted Colors. $4.95 ' Not long azo Eagle was deprived . of its Recorder's Office, virtually its last link with the great days of prospecting and mining on the up- Boys- Chaps and Vesis Assorted colors get a new runway for its airfield, to accommodate larger planes. s perhaps fitting, and 435 1o G.95 Enchante Lilac New Iridescent Nail Lacquer Also Lipstick Your Beauty Advisor “TOBY PATTQN # JUNEAU DRUG CO. Box 1151 — Phone 33 Cowboy Shirts Assorted colors and styles. $3.29 per Yukon. Instead, the town will| THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE—JUNEAU, ALASKA for it is the airplane that has made | unnecessary the lifffe outlying re. cording precincts of former ye: Eagle was a product of the Klon- | dike excitement, but unlike most ot the boom towns of that era, it did ‘not just spring up by accident Eagle was founded quite deliberate- |1y and with some forethought. | In fur-trading days, before gold | was discovered in the Yukon Val- |ley, Mose: Mercier ~established a | trading post - for the old Alaska Commercial Co."at the mouth of Mission Creek, where Eagle is now located, and called i Belle Isle The post was moved to the Forty- |mile in the mid-188Q's. when 'gold | was found there. .7/ & Nothing mueh happened around the abandoned trading post until the summer of 1898. Then a group of Americans, dlsliflsflgd with the strict rule of the Royal Mounted i the Klondike, left Dawson to Ioung an American town. W The party that drifted down the Yukon in an old barge and a few small boats included ‘such eolorful individuals as Old Man Martin, The ‘Pm(assor, Ted ‘and Jim Hudson, | Barney Gibbony, “Doc” Pernault, EJenny Moore with equipment for a restaurant, “Black” Becky White with her washtubs, ‘- and «George Graves and One Thumb Jack with v la taro layout and roulette table. DR. TED QUALITY SINCE /88T 20TH CENTURY THEATRE BLOG. 2ND FLOOR o e o e e g i OBERMAN OPTOMETRIST PHONE: OFFICE 61 JUNEAU, ALASKA Will Your Queen be THE Queen For Juneaw’s Celebration on the Fourthef July? Only 412 Days Left QUEEN CONTEST CLOSES AtNoon—Monday, July 2nd Here they are in all their Regal Beauty: Lois Lawrence Mary Whitaker Joyce Hepe Mary Whitaker Joyce Hope Lois Lawrence Joyce Hope Lois Lawrence Mary Whitaker DON'T DELAY! VOTE EVERY DAY! Want to Drive a New Plymouth DeLuxe Sedan? Want to share in the City’s Festivities? VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE One Vote may put Your Choice for Queen ofi her riglflhll throne When they were sure they hat‘ ‘crossed the boundary line into Al- aska, the members of the party picked the gravel bench at the\ nouth of Mission Creek ‘as their townsite. The first order of business was electing a name. They had started : out to found American City,” but! when a golden eagle circled over- head as they landed, some of the people switched to Eagle. A wote was taken and it ended in a dead- They settled it by flipping a ouble-eagle, and Eagle came up) on top. By November, 1898, there was a posioffice at Eagle, and soon after- rd a Customs office was opened i the town became the port of entry for the upper Yukon. Wildes P. Richardson, then only a lieutenant and with the Richard- on Highway far in the future, vis- ited Eagle in 1899 and selected it as the site for & new Army post, Fort Egbert. With the fort came the military telegraph line from Valdez to Fort Egbert to St. Mich-} ael, with Fort Eghbert as the head- quarters. At about the same time there was a great deal of agitation for an All-American route to the Yukon and a trail was pushed through from Valdez to Eagle, much of it following the route of the present highway. Eagle had mail service; then from Valdez, from Skagway by way of Whitehorse and Dawson, and in summer from Seattle by way of St. Michael. There were several proposals, too, to build @ Iroad to Eagle from one place or another on the coast, but none of them got beyond the = 5.8 - -~ talking phase cember 1, 1904, the District Court Two additional judges for Alaskawas moved there from Eagle. Then, were authorized by Congress onjin 1911, Fort Egbert was abandoned June 6, 1900, and Eagle, the met- | ropolis of the Interior, was named ¢ headquarters for the Third Divi-| The C )ifice remained and sion. Judge James Wickersham ar-iis still there, although there are rived gle on July 15, 1900, to- | few vessels now traveling that part gether with U. S. Marshal George|of the river. And Eagle, with one G. Perry and U. S. Attorney Alfred of the finest townsites on the up- M. Post, and soon was holding court|per Yukon, will scon have an en- not only at Eagle but at Circle and ;). q e long Rampart and other mining camps.|be conne with the Eagle became an incorporated city |growing high of ‘Interior in January, 1901, and as the supply Alaska center for miners on American,| FPifty years ago it was imp {Mission, Boundary, Washington,|to predict the rise of Fai Fourth-of-July and O'Brien Creeks|her present-day impo as well as the Forty Mile and SP\'-{Lhc concurrent decline of enty Mile Rivers, it was a busy|to it would be unsafe place in the early years of theloff Eag century. i1oss. v T T ) eBECTOS BEING SOUGHT I ALASKA lock. Delegates, L to r. Jim O'Brien, ma n to fall into ruins. write to a total “and other stores were operated by {the North American Transportation and Trading Co. and by Ed Peo- ples and F. M. Woodruff. There | was a Presbyterian church, with| |free library in connection, in charge lof Rev. James W. Kirk, and a| “Gatholic hospital and church under | Pather Munroe, S. J. The Episcopal{ H. K. Conn, who w church soon afterward bought the recently, has left f property of the Presbyterians and|Creek in British Colt established St. Paul's church and asbestos mining exploration mission. 3 £onn is with Johns-Man- | Dozens of. steamboats, upbcund |ville Co, Canad anch with {for Dawson or downbound for St.;headquarter |Michael and way ports, called at | be d s overed Eagle. The Alaska Pioneer Mining, about s fcDames and Milling Co. operated a sawmill 21¢ and there was another sawmill at lthe fort. Lem Stenger, Fred Vande- {wall, C. L. Andrews, John J. Hill- ard and George Woodruff were in lthe Customs Otfice, and Luther C. 1Hess was assistant U. S. Attorney. J. P. Coulter and D. H. Jonas ran a saloon and so did Ben Boone and W. W. McDonald and W. A.} Rokertson and several others, while Gus Bruns operated the Eagle Brewery. Among the men who ling- lered awhile in Eagle before going lengtt in veins od on to other prospects were H. Graehl, Phil Stack, J. B. Powers, | s along Jay Livengood, Jim Lennon, E. R.lri v interior Jesson and Fred Horn. g “Felix Peéro was the man who b miot started Eagle on the downgrade. 1 1 i to commer- He found gold in the Tanana coun- al va A try and soon there was a little up-| , s start mining camp approximately i i %0 no= 200. miles due west of Eagle. It was el - e fifuiag. Fairbenks. hns-Manville Co., Homer The new camp had none of the NCONNEELE. advantages of Eagle. It was not on . Oughtred, of the Thetford thg broad highway of the Yukqu Ashestos Co., of Thetford, Quebec River, or even on one of the Main i ... teq in the Territory shortl tributaries, but off on a sloughi .., .. where it could be reached only now and then by the smaller river steamers. It was not on the All-Am- erican route or any other regular Fi trail. It wasn’t hooked up with the telegraph line and it didn’t have an Army post. But Fairbanks did have gold in large quantities in nearby creeks and the camp grew into a town and the town continued to grow. On De- e < FIELD PROPANE GAS AND APPLIANCE CO. “Gas Has Got It" Walter D. Field — Phone 581 2 the Kobuk Alaska Island are re Refrigeration Service PARSONS ELECTRIC, Inc. Phones——— 1016 and 161 penp— IF | in town or in the "'Sticks"” CALL Glacier Cab 666 WET SCRAMBLE Texas, scramble as plastic General Manager NEA; Bob Fllis, Business Chamber of Commerce; and Hotel By oratory work on asbestos, AT tns S .] A g W NG O WD WEDNESDAY, President NEA; Don Eck, Rowland, President Juneau im Greany, Pheto) nager Baranof He lel; J. Manager June: ranof chef Ha vy Burs ' | the Army and the military tele- | R ES — A two-foot-high Shet-, land pony nuzzles a two-year-old miss at Hellabrunn Park Zoo, Munich, Germany, after ceremony naming the animal Geliban, IENDLY OVERTUR GETTING IN — Singer ¢ Perry Como drives while TV star Dagmar, acting as caddy, observes form during National Celebrities Golf Tousnament, Washington, D. C. OR PRIZ _Bathers in balls containing prizes are dropped from a e Gulf of low-!