The San Francisco call., 1899-03-05
GOLD FOUND ON
TAHK|N CREEK
Large Field Opened to
Miners.
PROSPECT0R'S RICH STRIKE
PoRCUPINE DISTRICT ANOTHER
KLONDIKE-
Excitement at Juneau Over the Lat
est Discovery Made on the
American Side of
the Line.
PRoSPECToR'S RICH STRIKE
PoRcUPINE DISTRICT ANOTHER
KLONDIKE.
BY HAL HOFFMAN.
Special Correspondence of The Call.

JUNEAU, Alaska, Feb. GA new
strike in the Porcupine district has eX-
cited people here. p. n. MCGUIRE came
down from the TahlSin two days ago
with about Sd worth of coarse gold in
a bottle. MCGUIRE is the man who
found a fair prospect on a bar of the
Taku River, along which runs the trail
of the same name, last summer. The
prospect on the Tahkin is so much bet
ter, considering first results, that Nc
Guire will abandon the Taku, for the
time being at least, and stick to the
Tahkin. This creek flows into the
Chilkat ut twelve miles from
Haines Mission, on the left-hand side
Of the river.
MCGUIRE dug hole in the snow, cut
wood, thawed the ground, and, with
snow melted into water, claims to have
taken out of the hole, within two feet
Of the surface, the 81 in dust in a day
and a half. This was a most laborious
and tedious process. Under ordinary
circumstances the returns ought to be
ten or twelve times that amount, that
is, with the snow off and with a sluice
box and plenty of water to work with.
MCGUIRE exhibited the gold in the
Franklin Hotel. There were several
men in his party and all told the same
story. He lives on Douglas Island,
where he worked in the Treadwell mine
for while and is considered a reliable
man.
If this gold came from a single pros
pect hole sunk only a short distance
below the surface it is a most eXtraor-
binary find. PrOportionately it is the
richest yet struck in the entire Chilkat
or Porcupine country. The Tahkin is
not properly in the Porcupine district.
1t is only a few hours travel up the
Chilkat or Dalton trail. Every foot of
ground in the creek has been Staked.
A rush followed the discovery. Scores
of men are tramping over the snow in
that region, looking for other creeks,
and from the nature of reports ever
since the original Porcupine was first
staked they will in all probability be
found. Many miners can be found who
say the Chilkat country is going to
prove to be the best placer mining
country and camp yet found in Alaska.
Nobody expects it will be as rich in
spots as the Klondike creeks, but the
dust seems to be there in paying guam
titles, spread over a country the gold
bearing area of which is not yet known.
Haines Mission has already grown
from a village in short skirts into a
fiourishing maindenhood. BunkhOuSes
and restaurants are springing up on
every hand. Stores and saloons are ap-
pearing along the trail. There are two
to three steamboats, each way daily
from Juneau and Skaguay, and already
there is a law suit over the townsite
At the present rate of growth in three
or four weeks the place will look less
like a missionary post than anything in
Alaska. The whole country back of it,
except beyond the divide, is in Ameri-
can territory, in Alaska proper, and
claims are 1900 feet square, or about
twenty acres in area. Consequently if
there is any gold in the ground at all
there ought to be a comfortable sum
in a twenty-acre gravel field.
E. p. Cronin, a Black Hills miner of
the '76 rush, who has just returned here
from Porcupine. says:
1T is undoubtedly the mining camp
of Alaska. 1 prospected several creeks
east of Porcupine and found gold in
every one of them. The best
prospects found were on
Trail Creek, tributary of the
Tahkin. Repeated paintings on the
surface gave an average of from 6 to s
cents to the pan, and at a depth of
three feet as high as % cents was
panned out. From five to fifteen colors
to the pan were found in the gravel
bar at the mouth of the Tahkin, and
this bar is about forty feet deep. There
may be some trouble from water there.
Ahkuk Creek, tributary of Chilkat
Lake, also prospects well. Other creeks
in this locality, have been told, show
11r, UaIl