The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-10-20
ANACONDA NEWS.
LIKES BEACH D|GG|hCS
Paul j. Becker Tells of Unique
Mining at Cape Nome.
HISTORY OF THE CAMP
How the Yellow Dust Is Taken From
the Sea- Washed sands-Dtggings
VIII Not Be Worked Out
by Next Year.
specia1 Dispatch to the Standard.

Special Dispatch to the Standard.
Deer Lodge, Oct. 17.-Paul J. Becker
arrived in Deer Lodge on the noon trair
to-day from Butte, where he had been
to visit a brother, whom he had not seen
for more than two years. Mr.. Becker is
just from the Cape Nome mining dis
trict in Alaska, where he went early in
June last from Dawson City. In the
spring of 1897, and before the Kiondike
boom had cached it's height, Mr.. Becker
and Hart Humber of this city left Ross
land, B. c., for Dawson. Mr. Becker has
been in Alaska ever since, spending all
of his time in the Klondike region, with
but poor luck until he heard of the strike
at Cape Nome last summer, when he
went there just in time to be among the
first to do placer mining on the beach at
that place.
He did not know anything about the
beach mining when he left Dawson for the
cape but had received the news that
good gold diggings had been discovered on
Snake river and Anvil creek last fall, and
concluded to go there and see what there
was in it, fortune not having smiled upon
him in the Klondike.
When he reached Cape Nome he found
that all the country for a distance of 80
from u to 20 miles back into the noun
tains had been staked off and 'hogged.
or gobbled up by the discoveries and
companies who had got in there last fall
and early this spring. their mode of ope-
rating being to locate claim after claim
by power of attorney, the principals not
being there. and then selling the claims
and deciding them to themselves in the
same manner. This created good deal
of dissatisfaction and gave the place a
black eye, until one day early in last June
a miner from Dawson. who had reached
there about broke and camped on the
beach as the only unclaimed land in that
vicinity. accidentally discovered gold in
the sand on the beach.
The news of the discovery spread like
wildfre and in a few days the beach was
lined with men, women and boys, armed
with all kinds of tools that would dig.
at work in the sand. Men who We're at
work on the creeks at $40 a day threw up
their jobs and took to the beach, and in
nearly every instance they rocked and
panned out more in an hour than they had
been earning in a day.
Those persons engaged in mining along
the beach are called "beach combers.'
and since the discovery their numbers
constantly grew. until just before Mr..
Becker's departure, Sept. n. there were
at least 2, 800 men. women and books strung
out along the beach panning, rocking and
sluicing the gravel for distance of eight
or ten miles.
AS before stated, the creeks and all
the land back from the beach was located
under the United States mining laws,
but on the long strip of tide land no man
had better right than another. or could
have under the tide land laws. and here
the gold seekers swarmed and soon con-
verified the barren shore into site of
busy industry and business of all kinds
began to respond to the boom from the
beach. Gambling houses, saloons and
dance halls soon sprang into existence.
Anvil, or Nome City. is veritable gam
blers paradise. Everybody has money
and as is usual in such cases where gold
is plenty, and many not used to handling
it, they spend their daily earnings on
gambling. liquor and dance halls at night.
The gamblers get their full share of the
dust and every game known to the fra
ternity is carried on in Nome City. The
saloons are also doing a thriving business,
selling plain drinks for 50 cents each,
beer 80 cents and other things in proper
ton.
The claim owners on Anvil creek, who
were paying IS and $40 per day to their
miners before the beach diggings were
discovered, hearing that there were a lot
of "busted" miners at kotzebu sound
sent up to that place and brought a ship
load of them down, thinking to flood the
labor market and thus reduce wages, but
the men got to Cape Nome from Kotzebu
Just in time to get in the ground floor
on the beach excitement, and all went to
work for themselves, rocking out gold
along the beach. They all Use rockers
and only occupy just as much space to
the man or group of men as can work it.
1t is not an unusual thing for small bit
of beach to pan out $40 to SIS an hour,
but it does not last long, and when eX-
hausted the miner must move his rocker
to another spot.
Mr.. Becker. with two partners using
one rocker, in one day rocked out 81, OPT,
and he showed your correspondent a
small phial in which was $33 of fine gold
which was washed by him from one pan
of dirt taken from the beach. The beach
to the east of Nome City does not yield
so well as that to the west.
Mr.. Becker thinks the mines along An
vii creek. Snow creek and Snake river
will pay as we'll as those in Dawson. for
they are about as rich and the dirt does
not have to be thawed by fire, as it does
in the latter place, but it be mined
the same as in Montana. He also thinks
that Dawson City has seen it's best days
as the placer mines there have made their
heaviest yields
'ehere is no timber for miles around
Nome City and the town was at first
composed principally of tents. For hun
dreds of miles along the coast, however,
driftwood is piled high and from this
source the miners derive wood for heat
Ing and cooking purposes. The miners
also started to use the drftwood for
building cabins but were stopped by the
military authorities. who saw that if the
driftwood was used for building pllr-
poses it would soon disappear and then it
would be a hard matter for the people to
keep from freezing during the long, cold
winters. So the miners lived in their
tents until lumber could be brought from
ST. Mchaels and other points, and when
Mr.. Becker left Nome City the place was
assuming the look of a city, there being