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Map of the Kenai Peninsula, Cook Inlet, and Turnagain Arm, Alaska Territory, 1897.

Map of Turnagain Arm Mining District, 1897, showing locations of present-day Seward and Hope highways.

Map of Sixmile drainage, showing location of present-day Seward and Hope highways, 1897.

Mining Camp at “The Forks,” where Canyon Creek and East Fork merge into Sixmile Creek.

Map of Lynx Creek drainage, 1897, showing location of present-day Seward Highway and Johnson Pass trail.

Map of Jack Morgan’s winter hunting trip, late 1900, showing the location of present-day Seward and Hope highways.

Grave markers at the Point Comfort cemetery of the five victims of the 1901 snow slide on Lynx Creek.

Memories of Old Sunrise was written by my grandfather, A. W. “Jack” Morgan, at the grand age of ninety-two. It is his account of his years in Alaska from 1897 to 1901 mining for gold on the Kenai Peninsula. I hope that his recollections will prove to be of value to serious Alaska historians and that they will also provide enjoyment to those who, like myself, have developed a keen interest in the early days of gold mining in Alaska.

My grandfather was born and raised on a small farm near Franklin, North Carolina. About all I know of his parents was that his father had a “Minie ball” left inside his elbow as a result of serving in the Confederacy during the Civil War. At the age of sixteen my grandfather set out on his own as there was not much opportunity for him on the farm or in that part of the country. He worked his way across the country on the railroads to the Pacific Northwest where he found steady work in the logging camps. He was twenty-nine years old and working with a partner as a gippo logger¹ when he decided to try his hand at gold mining in Alaska.

A few years after he returned from Alaska my grandfather and grandmother took a homestead on the Siletz River which is in Lincoln County, Oregon and flows into the Pacific Ocean. He continued to work in logging and over time became recognized as the leading timber cruiser² in Lincoln County. In the 1920s or early 1930s he moved to Portland, Oregon, and worked as both a timber cruiser and timber broker. At the age of eighty-eight, he set down his experiences in Lincoln County in his earlier book titled Fifty Years in Siletz Timber (published privately in 1959).

I have often marveled at the fact that my grandfather waited until so late in his life to put into writing his many interesting experiences and recollections. I think the answer, in part, lies in the unusual ruggedness of his constitution—both physical and mental. Almost anyone who had walked with him in the woods was ready to attest to his endurance and he remained physically active well into his eighties. He neither drank nor smoked and did not approve of those who did. He never learned to drive an automobile-relying instead on his own two legs or his two sons and five grandsons for his transportation needs. He was a man who did not know the meaning of self-doubt, was set in his ways, had strong opinions on most subjects, was known for his fairness and honesty, and didn’t like Democrats in office. He was simply such a strong and vigorous person that I think it was not until his late eighties that he began to realize that he would not be around forever and therefore should commit his recollections to writing.

My grandfather loved the Siletz River country. Some of my earliest memories of him were when he took me fishing in a rowboat on the Siletz for sea-run cutthroat and jack salmon. A few years after he died, my father sold some property on the Siletz to the county with the stipulation that it be used for a park in his memory. Today, picnickers and drift boaters are both able to make use of the “A. W. Morgan County Park” located about fifteen miles up the Siletz just above tidewater.

I have the fondest of memories of my grandfather and Memories of Old Sunrise has helped me to know and appreciate him all the more. I hope that all who read it will find it enjoyable and will, like me, be able to derive from it something that is personally meaningful.

I would like to acknowledge the libraries, museums, government agencies, private businesses, and individuals who provided assistance in the completion of this project.

Institutions that granted permission to reproduce photographs from their collections for this volume include the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library of the University of Alaska Fairbanks; the Alaska Historical Library in Juneau; the Anchorage Museum of History and Art; the Girdwood Historical Society; the Hope and Sunrise Historical Society in Hope; the Seward Public Library; the United States Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado; the Chugach National Forest, Anchorage; and the publishers of Alaska Sportsman in Anchorage.

Special thanks to Donald W. Clickner of Troy, New York, and Gerald C. Lansing of New Brunswick, New York, for allowing reproduction of photographs from their grandfathers’ expedition to Turnagain Arm in 1898. Nori Bowman of Fairbanks drew the initial maps. Daniel G. Williams of Aberdeen, Washington, provided explanations of hand logging terms. Steven C. Levi and Mike Burwell of Anchorage helped identify full names of several individuals mentioned in the manuscript. Eva Trautmann, of the publications committee of the Cook Inlet Historical Society, generously shared her time and editorial talents.

A number of members of the Morgan family were also helpful. David Duvall of Franklin, North Carolina, contributed photographs of Jack and Lovicia Morgan in their early years. I am especially grateful to Jack Morgan’s three grandsons: Robert J. Morgan of Rainier, Oregon; John Signor of Battleground, Washington; and the late James W. Signor of Portland, Oregon. They provided photographs of Jack and Lovicia Morgan and generously shared their knowledge about their grandparents.

Funding for this project has been provided in part by the State of Alaska, Gold Rush Centennial Task Force.

When Albert Weldon Morgan arrived in south-central Alaska in the spring of 1897, gold mining in the Turnagain Arm area had been underway for several years. Traces of gold were first reported in Alaska by Russians on the Kenai River in 1834 and again in 1850-1851. After the United States purchased Alaska in 1867, American prospectors began to search for precious metals in the largely unmapped territory. Gold was discovered in commercial quantities on tributaries of the upper Yukon River and in southeast Alaska in the 1880s. This led to prospecting in other parts of the territory. In 1890, a prospector named Alexander King paid off his grubstake at the old Russian trading post at Kenai with four pokes of gold obtained from panning on the northern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. Up to that time, the shallow waters and treacherous bore tides of Turnagain Arm had served to keep prospectors away. The discovery of gold by King attracted the attention of local prospectors, and in 1893 and 1894 claims were filed on Resurrection Creek and its tributaries. Discoveries on Canyon and Mills creeks the following year set off the first “rush” in which some 3,000 gold seekers flocked to the Turnagain Arm during 1896.

The large number of miners, the meager amounts of gold found on many of the creeks, and news of a richer gold strike in the Klondike fields of Canada resulted in a sharp drop in the number of people attracted to the Turnagain Arm district in 1897. Like others who arrived in 1897, Morgan found the most promising ground already staked by those who had arrived earlier. Opportunities were scarce for latecomers, who usually had no mining experience and limited money and supplies on which to live. Most were forced to work for wages, hoping to make a grubstake that would enable them to strike out on their own or to buy into a partnership on a good claim. Many exhausted their resources prospecting the less promising creeks or buying claims that proved to be worthless. For most, the dream of striking it rich faded quickly. A second “rush” of 7,000-10,000 people to Cook Inlet occurred in 1898, but it too was short-lived. Thereafter, the number of gold seekers rapidly declined as the disappointed returned to the states or moved on to the more promising prospects in the Klondike and Nome areas. Even Alexander King moved on to the Klondike, where he died on the gallows for killing a partner.

For those who stayed on, the creek gravels—or “placers” as they were called—yielded no better than wages in most cases. Profitable mining was confined to a small number of creeks. Turnagain Arm became a largely forgotten backwater compared to more promising discoveries made elsewhere in Alaska. At the same time, the nature of mining in the Turnagain Arm area was changing. Those who came into the country before 1898 used hand mining methods to work the gravel streams. This usually consisted of shoveling gold bearing gravel into sluice boxes. Water from creeks was diverted through the sluice boxes to wash off the gravel. The heavier gold nuggets and flakes were trapped between riffles—bars or slats set across the bottom of the sluice boxes. As the richer claims were worked out, even greater volumes of gravel had to be shoveled and washed in order to make wages.

Experienced miners from the California gold fields, such as Simon Wible of Bakersfield, arrived in 1898 and 1899 with large amounts of capital to purchase and consolidate claims, hire large crews, dig ditches and build flume systems, and bring in large volumes of metal pipe to undertake hydraulic mining. This method of mining employed large volumes of water under pressure to blast away the gravel hillsides and push the gold bearing gravel through long lines of sluice boxes. By 1901, about the only mining operations making a profit on the “Arm,” as the Turnagain Arm area was frequently called, were those engaged in hydraulic technology. At the same time, prospectors were beginning to locate promising hard rock prospects—known as “lodes”—where the gold deposits were still located in place in the native rock.

The limited gold deposits in the creeks of the Turnagain Arm area dictated that future placer mining there would be limited to hydraulicking. The transition from hand mining to hydraulic mining on the Turnagain Arm occurred during the years that A. W. Morgan mined in the district. After Morgan sold the “J. R. No. 2,” or the “old Powers claim” as it was called, on Lynx Creek in 1901, he spent the rest of the season working for a hydraulic operator on Canyon Creek. In September, he sold and abandoned his remaining claims and left Alaska for good. He was probably more fortunate than most of his contemporaries, due in large part to his previous mining experience, his business acumen, and his ability to work with and lead people.

The short-lived gold rush to Turnagain Arm had a long term impact on the Cook Inlet area. Prospectors fanned out into the surrounding country, finding new placer deposits in the nearby Yentna and Talkeetna drainages, and lucrative lode deposits in the Hatcher Pass area. The Turnagain Arm gold rush prompted the development of the first settlements of Americans in substantial numbers in the Cook Inlet area. More than two decades before the founding of Anchorage, two bustling mining camps on Turnagain Arm grew into large towns of several hundred people each. Hope, or Hope City as it was also known, was built at the mouth of Resurrection Creek in 1895 and rapidly became the supply center for the surrounding diggings. The following year, Sunrise City was founded just upstream from the mouth of Sixmile Creek.

Miners preparing to depart Sunrise for their claims, 1896.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF U.S. FOREST SERVICE, ANCHORAGE.

These two towns provided the base of operations for the large number of gold seekers, freighters, merchants, saloonkeepers, and wide assortment of gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, and other adventurers who were attracted to every gold rush. Hope and Sunrise also provided shelter for those who “wintered over” between the mining seasons. Sunrise quickly outgrew Hope, reflecting the greater output of gold from Canyon, Mills, Lynx, and Gulch creeks in the Sixmile drainage. Hope remained a dry community for many years. The presence of two saloons in Sunrise may have had something to do with Sunrise’s rapid growth in its early years.

As hand mining activity declined and most miners departed, the populations of Sunrise and Hope dwindled. By the summer of 1897, only 80 people were left in Hope and 150 in Sunrise. During the summer of 1898, the population of Sunrise swelled to around 800 people, briefly making it the largest town in the territory. Within a short time, people began leaving in large numbers, signaling the end of the boom. After 1900, the population of Sunrise declined faster than Hope. Several fires destroyed a number of the buildings in Sunrise, and the last trading post closed in 1910. The few miners who remained used the abandoned buildings for firewood. By the 1930s, only two people continued to reside in Sunrise. A small but stable number of people continued to live in Hope, due in part to its more favorable location. Sunrise became a ghost town, and is now a pasture for horses. All that remains of this once thriving mining town along the eroded banks of the Sixmile Creek are faint outlines of the structural foundations and root cellars of some of the former buildings and the ruins of a cabin constructed in the 1930s.

Morgan’s reminiscences of his experiences during the Turnagain Arm gold rush provide a rich look into the early years of Sunrise and the experiences of thousands of gold seekers who flocked to Cook Inlet country. In some respects, Morgan’s experiences were similar to other latecomers in that he had to work for wages and eventually left to seek his fortune elsewhere. In other respects, his experiences were different, reflecting his abilities and character. He stayed on longer than most - five seasons - and worked for himself during most of that time. He brought money with him, and invested it wisely on a claim on which he had worked as a laborer. He kept an eye out for new prospects, staking additional placer claims on Lynx and other creeks, and several lode claims on tributaries of upper Canyon Creek. Morgan loved the wild country and chose, unlike most, to spend several winters in Sunrise. He also brought his bride to Alaska, a rough country where there were few women and many hardships. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not drink or gamble away what he earned. He left Alaska with more in his pocket than he had when he arrived.

The memoirs of A. J. Morgan are important for the insight they provide into the day-to-day life in the mining camps of Turnagain Arm. They also bring to life the colorful personalities of some of the people involved in the district’s early history. His recollections provide details about the social interactions between those living in the remote mining camps and the towns of Sunrise and Hope. His experiences illustrate the transition from hand mining techniques to hydraulic mining, and help chronicle the development of Sunrise as a community. In addition to telling a good story, Morgan was an astute observer of human nature. His descriptions of men and women in the mining camps and gold fields of Turnagain Arm illustrate the rich diversity of backgrounds, character traits, and personalities of the people he met and with whom he worked.

Sunrise, Alaska, 1904.

F. H. MOFFIT, #196, U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, DENVER, COLORADO.

Morgan’s own character is a study in contrasts. His gentle sense of humor, the hallmark of his style as a storyteller, contrasts sharply with elements of his character as described by members of his family. By all accounts, Morgan was a pious and proper man. He grew up as a North Carolinian mountain boy, who loved the outdoors. As the son of a southern preacher, he had the temperament and values of a hard-shelled Southern conservative. One of Morgan’s grandsons, John Signor, described him as a quiet and soft spoken man, always the gentleman, who could also be bullheaded and autocratic. Unfailingly polite to everyone, Morgan mined in Arizona’s toughest gold camp in the 1880s, bossed wild and unruly logging crews in Washington State in the 1890s, participated in the Turnagain Arm gold rush in Alaska from 1897 to 1901, and cruised timber in the rugged conifer forests of the Oregon and Washington coastal mountains for nearly fifty years after the turn of the century. In Alaska, Morgan and his wife filed claims for others, acting as agents for miners who could not read and write. He was genuinely concerned about others, but not given to being pushed around. He considered bragging about one’s own deeds, particularly fighting, to be distasteful.

Born in 1868, Morgan grew up in North Carolina during hard times. He left home at age sixteen after his mother was killed in a wagon accident for which he was blamed. He left Franklin with about two dollars in silver, a large clasp knife, and an old Spiller & Burr 36-caliber cap and ball pistol. By the time he reached Atlanta, Georgia, he was riding a mule and had a pack and bedroll. While in Atlanta, he wrote his family that some rough fellows tried to rob him at gun point in the city. According to how one family member recalled the outcome of that encounter, “They didn’t have much luck with Jack. He was stubborn about things like that.”

In the following years, Morgan made his way across the west working on the railroad. He stopped in places such as Nashville, Oklahoma, and the Texas Panhandle. He described the “boomers” that he encountered in these places as a drunken and rowdy lot. He moved on to the White Mountains of New Mexico, and then to Arizona where he had his first experiences mining for gold in the Tombstone region. After working for other miners, he acquired several mining properties near Tombstone and in the Superstition Mountains near present-day Phoenix. He held these claims until the late 1930s, when he sold them to a large mining corporation. While living in Arizona in the late 1880s, Morgan packed a silver Remington pistol which he used to ward off claim jumpers. He also knew a number of people who became prominent, such as Wyatt Earp, whom Morgan once described as not only a marshal but “a saloonkeeper, cardsharp and whoremaster.”

Like many others who grew up on the western American frontier, Morgan had little faith in the justice system. Where he came from, people took care of their own problems. He would not tolerate anyone taking liberties with him or his family. He always kept a loaded firearm close at hand, whether he was mining, logging, traveling, or at home. He is said to have brandished his pistol effectively on more than one occasion when men tried to run him off his mining claims in Arizona and Alaska. While he was not one to look for trouble, he was also not given to backing down. On the frontier experienced by A. W. Morgan, justice was dispensed quickly, with few formalities and little fanfare.