Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1900-08-24
STEVENS DECISION.
Important Decision Regarding Beach
Mining Made by Commissioner
Stevens at Cape Nome.
Holds that the Sixty Foot Strip Along
the Beach is Subject to Loca-
ton by Claim.
Decision Affects the Rights Of Miners
to Rock the Sand at Will Along
the Beach.


to Rock the Sand at Will Along
the Beach.
Seattle, Aug. 21.-Cape Nome gold
beach has been officially declared to
be no longer a poor mans heritage.
A decision just rendered by United
States Commissioner Stevens holds
that the sixty-foot roadway along the
shore of Bering sea does not exist, and
that if it ever did exist it was done
away with by section 26 of the new
Alaska code, adopted by congress last
June.
Under the commissioners decision,
the beach is subject to location, and
the filings of large corporations and
few individuals made last fall, and
which have always been contended to
be illegal, are now established as valid.
Arrests have been numerous, accord
ing to reports reaching here by the
steamer Centennial yesterday.
A test case was made by Frank Sic
ger, who refused to move his rocker or
quit work, when ordered to vacate a
location made on the beach by George
w. Beardsley and S. R. Calden, and
known as the Ophir beach claim. A
criminal complaint was sworn out by
nd nj
of the Alaska Gold Mining Company,
who had purchased the GOx132O-foot
location from Beardsley and Calden.
The warrant was issued under section
Is of the Alaska criminal code, charg-
ing trcspass on a mining claim with
intent to commit felony.
This case was taken before Commits
sioner Stevens, who has rendered a
decision that no sixty-foot roadway
exists in Alaska, and that the original
location was legally made. Seiger has
been bound over for appearance at the
next term of court.
Feeling among the miners is run
ming high over the loss of the beach,
and every legal effort, II is said, will
be made to reverse the decision.
A mass meeting of miners was called
at Nome August 2 at which resolu-
tions were adopted to form protec-
tive organization and assert and claim
the rights of American citizens to mine
the beach without interference by any
man or corporation.
At the meeting H. I. ("Deep Creek")
Jones, former chairman of the demo-
cratic state central committee, took an
active part. The purpose of the min
ers' association is, first, to contest the
right of operation Of the criminal law
in the premises, and, failing in this, to
prosecute an effort to have section 26
of the Alaska code, under which Com
missioner Stevens rendered his deci-
sion, repealed.
The court, after reviewing the facts
as set forth in the complaint, and a
portion of the evidence as relating to
priority of location, says:
1.-The defendant in his statement to
the court, admits tnat he has been en-
gagged in mining with rocker on the
complainant's claim, but contends that
his operations have been confined to a
strip of land running along the shore
line of the sea, commencing at mean
high tide, and sixty feet in width, ex-
tending along the shore line across
the entire claim, which strip, the de-
fendant contends, is not subject to To-
cation as mining claim, but is part
Of the public highway. The question
Of the defendants guilt or innocence,
therefore, resolves itself into the ques-
tion whether or not there is a roadway
extending along the beach of Bering
sea, and over the claim in question,
sixty feet in width above the line
known as high-tide line, and which in
law is not subject to location as part
of a mining claim.
Section 2310 Of the Revised Stat
utes of the United states declares that
All valuable mineral deposits in lands
belonging to the United. States, both
surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby
declared to be free and open to explor-
alton and purchase and the act of May
il, 1884, providing a civil code for
Alaska, declared that, the laws of the
United States relating to mining
claims, and the rights incident thereto,
shall from and after the passage of this
act be in full force and effect in said
district being the district of Alaska.
From this it would seem to follow
that all the lands belonging to the