Evening star., 1916-12-10
Odd Features Of Life in the City of Golden
Copyright. 1916, by Frank G. Carpenter,

=. gCopyrlght. 1916, by Frank g. Carpenter.)
NOME. Alaska
= n AN in the Hotel Golden Gate. in the
: II City of Golden Sands | can look out
III of my window upon the beach from
..eS which fortunes have been washed
with the salt water of the ocean.
and all about me is the city of
:. Nome. whose foundations are laid
upon soil spr.nkled with gold dust
{" Nevertheless the view is as dismal
/ that of Poverty Flat The hotel is
ugly. dreary bern OF four stories. and it is
golden only in the high charges for any
( petty service the guest may want. 1t costs
ne 10 cents to press the electric button
-. wrich brings the belIboy. and the bills
for laundry are beyond computation.
- The city Of Nome is one of shreds and
- patches The municipality is the ragged
% 1esi l have ye; found in Alaska. II has
houses enough for 10000 people. but its
citizens are only one-third Of that num-
;. bas. The buildings are of every descrip-
.ioa. and they are scattered along streets
paved with plank gravel the sand
~ t!iS sea .Snoiv-
,.-'' At the upper end is the Eskimo village.
:. II IL composed OF tents. rude cabins and
. shacks Of boards. the most of than put
Up by the placer miners when they were
washing gold out of the ocean. and now
occupied by squatters and Eskim5s. Tie
town proper is further down the beach.
The chief street is Front street. vide
~ road paved with thick planks and lined
>" with houses OF one or two stories. som;
= of the buildings contain excellent stores.
20. hut there are many vacancies. and Signs
of TO Rent are TO be seen in every
block. Nome is on the decline. Its ropu-
lation today is not one-tenth OF what II
was at the time Of the great stamp d =
- bike all placer mining camps. 1t decreases
with the washing out Of the gold tom
= the sands.
.. - Nome lies right on the sea. l stood on
Front street tooay a high tide and threw
.. a. stone into the ocean 1t ricocheted over
a beach which was once gold mine.
Nome is bounded the west by strip
OF gold-bearing shore sixty feet wide and
three miles III length, the sands of which
- were once mixed with gold dust. When
this discovered men came here by
the thousands from all parts of the world
to wash out the gold. and many took
: away fortunes. As the miners came in
each picked out for himself certain part
of the beach. He drove in stake where
his feet stood and drew a mark on the
sand on each side of him as far out as
he could reach with shovel, and this
was his claim. This was the condition at
the beginning. the claims being small.
:" Nevertheless. out Of such holdings 500 men
p TOOK gold aust 10 Inc amount o. more
than s., ,000, 600. an average of $4,000 per
man For a distance OF forty miles along
the shore the sands were found to contain
II gold and the best pay was right here at
- Nome. Just OF the town two men
cleaned up $3.s00 in three days. The
stories Of the miners interesting. I
shall write some Of them later
AS walked up the beach this afternoon
saw men still washing gold out Of the
9 sand. In one place they had put up
-"engine and stretched a rude tent above
Il: Connected with the engine was pipe
> -of about six inches in diameter which car
->,risd the water to the top of a si,iice box
twenty thirty feet high. The men were
throwing the sand into the box and the
-streSSn was washing it away, the gold
e"being caught in rifles or iron gratings in
the bottom of the box.
Further north some men were rocking
ero0t the gold in cradles. and there was
patchy mining going on all along the