Alaska

D

Organization of Civil Government

Not having a formal government, the miners of Juneau and the Interior, like their counterparts in the American West, drafted their own form of frontier democracy known as miners’ codes. These codes regulated mining practices and community conduct.

In the meantime, Congress passed a measure in 1884 to provide Alaska with a simple civil government. Alaska was designated a judicial district, and the law code of Oregon was applied. The president, with Senate approval, was to appoint a governor, a district court judge, four lesser-court commissioners, a district attorney, a U.S. marshal and four deputies, and a clerk of court. The act expressly forbade a legislature and a delegate to Congress. Natives were not to be disturbed in their occupancy or use of the land, and prohibition of liquor was retained. The sum of $25,000 was provided for the education of children.

D

1

The Gold Rush

With the gold discovery in the Klondike in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 1896, people soon flocked north from all parts of the world. As the gateway to the Klondike, Alaska prospered, and new communities and businesses developed to meet the gold seekers’ needs. Many of those disappointed in the Klondike drifted to Alaska. In 1898 four miners discovered gold at Anvil Creek on the Seward Peninsula, and the Nome Mining District was organized there. By the summer of 1900, Nome was a tent city with more than 20,000 miners working the claims and the beaches, which also contained gold.

The next great strike after Nome occurred in the Tanana Valley and led to the founding of Fairbanks in 1902. Other discoveries in the valley helped make Fairbanks the center of interior Alaska. District Court Judge James Wickersham moved the headquarters of the Third Judicial District to Fairbanks, which attracted other government functions and gave the town economic stability. It acquired schools, churches, and a hospital, and by 1905 its population had grown to 5,000.

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Gold was mined and new towns founded throughout Alaska. North of the Arctic Circle gold was found near the Chandalar and Koyukuk rivers, where two settlements, Coldfoot and Wiseman, came into existence. In the area of the Kuskokwim and Innoko rivers, Iditarod, McGrath, Bethel, Flat, and Ophir were communities of some size that developed from mining camps.

D

2

Federal Attention

The gold rush focused national attention on Alaska. Congress started to deal more seriously with Alaskan problems. It appropriated funds for the U.S. Geological Survey to begin a survey and exploration of Alaska, and it extended federal coal mining laws to the district. The U.S. Army built posts at Eagle, Nome, Haines, and Tanana.

Congress also enacted three pieces of legislation dealing with the economy and the political system. The first, passed in 1898, enabled railroad builders to obtain a right-of-way and extended the homestead laws to Alaska so that settlers could now get title to land. In 1899 Congress enacted changes to make the Oregon Code more responsive to Alaskan conditions. At the same time it levied taxes on businesses. The revenues collected went into the U.S. Treasury to pay for the cost of governing Alaska. And in 1900 Congress added two new judicial districts, moved the capital from Sitka to Juneau, and provided for incorporation of towns.

D

3

Boundary Settlement

The gold rush era brought to a head a long-standing boundary dispute with Canada. The portion of the Russo-British treaty of 1825 that was intended to define the limits of British and Russian possessions south of 60° north latitude was ambiguous. Several times since the 1867 purchase, disputes had arisen and suggestions were made, mainly by the Canadians, to settle the controversy. But neither side was willing to pay for a survey.

By 1898 Canada claimed ownership of Skagway and Dyea, which would have given Canadians in the Yukon Territory direct access to the Pacific Ocean without having to pass through American territory. President Theodore Roosevelt condemned Canada’s claims as lacking any merit. Eventually, a tribunal of six jurists, three from each side, examined the controversy. By a vote of four to two, with Richard Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of Britain, siding with the United States, the Canadian claims were rejected except for two small islands in Portland Canal. The decision, in 1903, soured relations with Canada for a time, but the boundary was now clearly defined.

E

The 20th Century

E

1

Economic Developments

As Alaska’s population grew to 63,592 in 1900, the federal government sought to encourage agriculture. As early as 1897, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had sent three agents to various regions in Alaska to examine their suitability for agriculture. Acting on the agents’ recommendations, the department established several agricultural experiment stations, first at Sitka in 1898, then at Kenai, Kodiak, Rampart, Copper Center, Fairbanks, and finally Matanuska in 1917.

Alaska also needed a transportation system, but road building did not begin until passage of the Nelson Act and the creation of the Board of Road Commissioners in 1905. The Nelson Act created the Alaska Fund, decreeing that 70 percent of all money collected from license fees outside of incorporated towns was to be used for road building. Another 25 percent went for education, and the remaining 5 percent for care of the insane. Since the Nelson Fund did not accumulate enough money, Congress annually appropriated additional road construction funds. By 1920 the Alaska Road Commission, as the board came to be called, had built 7,870 km (4,890 mi) of roads and trails.

The United States elected Democrat Woodrow Wilson as president in 1912. He promised to give Alaska’s problems the utmost consideration. Among other items, he recommended that Congress aid in unlocking Alaska’s resources by constructing a railroad. Congress authorized the construction of the Alaska Railroad in 1914 and appropriated $35 million; construction began in 1915. The line was to run from Seward to Fairbanks. The project was finished in 1923 at a cost of about $65 million.

Anchorage, now Alaska’s largest city, owes its origin to the railroad. It began as construction headquarters for the Alaska Engineering Commission in charge of railroad construction. The commission built Anchorage, installing water, electrical, sewage, and telephone facilities. It put in streets and provided firefighting services as well as a hospital and a school for children of its employees. The railroad construction brought an economic boom, employing more than 2,000 workers in 1914 and rising to a high of 4,500.

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