The Seward gateway., 1915-10-05

tion to large number of his friends in Alaska he announced that the hotels and saloons of Valdez, the Ladies Guild of Valdez, the school children of Valdez, his various em- ployees, members of the Tilikum 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, 1907, and with the assistance of we'll organiz- ed publicity bureau he tried to put it over. Seattle turned the proposition down and Reynolds went to Tacoma where he offered to make that city the headquarters of the steamship line and the railroad, with the added statement that he could divert to Tacoma the bulk of the Alaska trade, but he had only little better success in Tacoma than in Seattle and as far as Puget Sound was concerned in- vestment in the securities was with held.
 Reynolds secured the cooperation of number of Valdez people and it is due to that fact combined with the later failure of the road that crei ted the spirit of antagonism on the part of certain Valdez people to every other successful enterprise in Alaska. It was this feeling also which, com bined 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, having failed to make good on any of their prom ises, were not only the aggressors, but the ones who started the riot. Those known to be obstructed by the illegitimate enterprise were held up to slorn in the faked press dispatches from Alaska and even to this date the question is brought up in a more UI less serious manner to show how this 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 much as from the lack of attention and other causes which followed the shooting. Valdez made it appear that armed men were patrolling the canyon and were shooting down the builders of the Alaska Home Rail way and as the years have passed that falsehood has grown and circu- lated in various exaggerated forms so chat the truth can never be expect ed tI catch up with the false state ment.
 However, as matter of court record, the famous Keystone Canyon shooting was ended in May, 1908, at Juneau, when the jury in the trial of the man accused of the shooting, af- ter deliberating 40 minutes, rendered a verdict of not guilty and it was clearly shown by the attorneys argu- ing the case in the prisoners behalf, that the Alaska Home Railway had been the aggressor and had institut- ed a riot. It was also shown that it. was a fight between laborers rather than any discussion between corpora tions and that the officials of the Cop per River road knew nothing of the matter.
 In October, Reynolds and his coun- sel were in the East trying to raise the money to keep the enterprise alive. Work on the railroad was suS- pended Oct. 11th with some 400 men at Valdez clamoring for pay. The first snow of the season was at hand and the men were ready for any violence, although those prominent citizens of Valdez who had backed Reynolds were still firm in the be- lief that he would be able to pull out successfully. It was the beginning of the end. The offices in Seattle were closed with several creditors trying to locate the promoter, but in the month of October the H. D. Reynolds bank at Valdez closed it's doors and the great enterprise listed