1920s Alaska Gold Mine Dredge Archive Quality Photo Album (450+)

Item Details

Though this is a personal album, it is as expertly compiled and exhaustively identified as any official records that N.L. Wimmler prepared during his long career with the U.S. Geological Survey & Bureau of Mines. It is no coincidence that his finest and most prolific work was done through Alaska. 

 

 

360 of the nearly 500 photos pertain to Alaskan surveys (w/ accompanying typed index sheets) from 1922 to 1925 and again in 1929. Shorter trips are included in the album but not indexed, even another 20 photos have never been removed from a developers envelope inside back cover. Those trips include 1913 Juneau, 1915 Bush Mine w/ H. Krumb & H.R. Plate, 1914 Helm Bay, 1915 Portland Canal / British Columbia, 1920 New Hudson Bay Mining in Flin Flon & the Wolverine Camp in Saskatchewan. These can be seen as early in Wimmler’s career, even a nice full length portrait of the man on the 1915 trip.

 

 

12 x 15" album w/ images averaging 3.25 x 5.5" held by only by photo corners. The few photos that have become loose are present and often show handwritten captions reverse. 

 

 

Partial list of equipment, constructs, locations & operations follow :

Miocene ditch, flumes, penstocks, dams, sluices, bedrock drainage, bower drills, kimball drills, bridges, barges, ground sluicing, shaft prospecting, strip mines, swing & box gates, drilling boulders, shoveling tailings, surf washers, copper prospecting, shoveling in, drift mining, cribbed, winter & hydraulicking dumps, stacking tailing, piping overside, placer mining, pass cuts, hydraulic elevator operation, ruble elevator, slip scraper, cableway excavator, Bagley scraper, steam shovels, self dumper, dragline excavator & steam / gasoline dredges.

 

 

Green Butte Mine, Gen. Jacobs Inaugural Ride on A.E. Commission boat, Childs Glacier, Provision Boat, Discovery Goldstream, Hot Springs, Livengood, Nome, Fairbanks, Innoko, Iditarod, Bentley Falls, Sullivan Beach, Fairhaven, Hammon Consul Goldfields, Seward Peninsula, Porcupine Mines at Skagway, Fairbanks to Eagle Airplane (1924).

 

 

Riley Inv., Hammerschmidt, Idaho Mining, Ketter & Dawson, J. Anderson, Bobe, C.W. Hudson, Berry, J. Andry, Chas. Swanson, Guis & Co., Matthewson Bros., Cleveland & Howe, Loranger, Lea & Swanberg, Pioneer Mining, A. Cordova, Keenwalik Mining, Berg & Maier, Ed Ness, Vibe & Camaron, A. Hanot, F. Bleecker, Johnston & Co., Flume Dredge, Northern Light Mining, Chatham Gold Dredging, Guinan & Ames, Beaton & Donnelly, A.H. Moore, Blue Goose, Kuskokwin Dredging, Wild Goose, Tanana Valley Gold Dredging, Dry Creek, Bangor, Dexter Creek, Solomon Valley, Behring, Goldsmith & Alaska Kugarok Dredging, Hammon Consolidated Gold, Casadepaga Mining, Allen Mining, Nome Creek Dredging, Fairbank Exploration Co., New York Alaska Gold Mining, Yukon Consolidated & `Eskimo’ Dredge owned by “Three Friends”.

 

 

Comprehensive reference by a master on the subject of commercial mining in Alaska, unlikely to be found again. Beautiful condition w/ no noticeable damage or loss. Estate find.