Douglas Island news., 1915-09-15
Rise and FaII of Reynolds

E(iSe and Fall Ot EeYnOldS
 When recent disastrous fire wiped out the waterfront and business section of Valdez, Alaska, destroyed with other material in one of the offices was the complete file of clippings and other data of the Alaska Home Railway, says Railway and Marine News.
 One of the national news syndicates has resently been publishing a series of articles dealing with famous hoaxes and get-rich-quick schemes of the past two centuries, including the Mississip- pi bubble, and other schemes which had their inception on the other side of the Atlantic. The Alaska Home Railway, promoted by Henry D. Key holds, in the year 1907, certainly eclipsed them all in the alluring pros poets held out to expected purchasers of stock. Reynolds had quite career in Southern Alaska and certainly got any number of followers. He is the one who figured so prominently as the pro- moter in Rex Beach's story of "The Iron Trail" While bis railroad scheme would not stand investigation owing to the impossible mountain barrier lying back of Valdez, his plan of making a big steamship line of the Alaska Coast 1 Go. and developing mineral around 1 Prince William Sound had their good points aud is just what has since been accomplished by others.
 In his original prospectus he an- uounced his intention of building a railroad to the interior. It was to be narrow gauge with 3O-pouud rails, cleo trical power generated by water falls; policy uniform freight rates and fares, no high salaried ofBcials, no free passes or rebates. In addition to a large num- Der of his friends iu Alaska he amour ced that the hotels and saloons of Valdez. the Ladies' Guild of Valdez,the school children of Valdez, his various employees, members of the Tillikum club and prospectors in the district had all been included in the original stock subscription. With this as basis he came to Seattle in August, l9O7. and with the assistance of well organized publicity bureau he tried to put it over. Seattle turned the propo- sitiou down and Reynolds went to Ia coma where he offered to make that city the headquarters of the steamship 1 line aud the railroad, with the added statement that he could divert to Taco ma the bulk of the Alaska trade, but he had only a little better success in Tacoma thau in Seattle and as far as Puget Sound was concerned invest ment in the securities was withheld.
 Reynolds secured the co operation of number of Valdez people and it is due to that fact combined with the later failure of the road that created the spirit of antogonism on the part of certain Valdez people to every other successful enterprise in Alaska. 1t was this feeling also which, combined with the remarkable publicity efforts of the ] Alaska Home Railway, that caused the press of the United States to ring with the imaginary bloody war in Keystone Canyon. In this the Home people, hay ing failed to make good on any of their promises, were not ouly the aggressors, but the oues who started the riot. ] Those known to be obstructed by the illegitimate enterprise were held up to scorn iu the faked press dispatches from Alaska, and even to this date the question is brought up in a more or ! less serious manner to show how the Alaska Home Railway was blocked in it's legitimate effort to build up the country. Practically everything that was sent out from Valdez at that time was a misrepresentation of the facts and the one man who was shot, died, not from the effects of the shooting SO