The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-01-04
NOME is A CITY
THAT HIBERNATES
GOT ITS NAME AS RESULT OF
THE INCORRECT READING
OF A WORD.

Nome, Alaska, has gone into its an
nual winter Information, according to
newspaper dispatches, and is expected
to return to life with but little vitality
next spring This remote mining camp
which, after a meteoric career and
growth into city, threatens practical
ly to pass out of existence, is describ-
ed in the following bulletin issued by
the National Geographic Society:
Nome is town which always hi
bernates in winter. Situated on the
bleak north coast of the icy, storm
swept Boring sea, close to the Arctic
Circle, it is frozen in and showed IN
for about seven months of the year.
Its chief industry, placer gold mining,
depends upon the use of running wa
ter, therefore the activities must stop
when the water congeals. Rather than
spend the long winter in the extreme
cold waiting for the return OF mild
weather, large part OF the popula,,
ton of Nome has always returned
to the states in the fall, making the
Journey back to the north in June,
when navigation opens.
Beach of Golden Sands.
"The overnight creature of an un-
usual gold discovery, the town grew
up on a site that probably could not
have been worse fitted for commun-
ity of human habitation. 1t is open
to the full sweep of the violent storms
and the heavy waves that often beat
in from the sea. 1t has a relatively
narrow beach and Immediately within
is strip of tundra, frozen solid IN
winter, but a sea of mud during the
open season. In this morass the town
grew up. In the early days men and
animals houndered through streets
that were knee-deep in mud. Later
the principal thoroughfares were
boarded over. Each summer fool
hardy newcomers built structures on
the beach only to have them wholly
destroyed by the blasts OF September
when, almost without warning, huge
waves sweep to the edge of the tundra
and often into the town itself.
Gold was first discovered neal
Nome in 1898, in one of the numerous
creeks that rise in the hills back OF
the town and cross the tundra to the
sea. This discovery was widely her
aided through Alaska and the western
states. Thousands flocked to the neigh
borhood in the summer of 1899 and the
town was born. That season the re-
markable discovery was made that the
sand of the beach at the edge OF the
town was rich in gold, and thousands
of prospectors with crude equipment
took out respectable fortunes. The
beach could not be filed upon but any
one was permitted to dig there. Thi:
unique feature of the Nome gold field!
drew more than 10000 people to the
region the following summer and the
! town grew into a thriving city. Placer
miners burrowed into the sand like
moles for thirty miles or more up ant
down the beach.
Use of Machinery.
"By the end of the 1900 season tn
beach was exhausted of its easily OBJ
tainable gold and large part OF tn
mushroom population turned ava.
from the community permanently
Development of the gold deposits II
the creeks back to Nome continued
however, and the town settled to
permanent population of several thous
and. with municipal government
water works, electric lights and othe
conveniences of civilization. In thu
wears between 1910 and the outbreal
of the world war there was marked
development of the use dredges anc
other machinery in the exploitation O
the creek deposits. This lessened the
number OF miners employed by the
large companies and still further re
stricted the population of Nome
though it remained important as golC
| field.
with the disturbed conditions arts
ing from the war, Nome has beer
threatened with economic disaster
The country is still rich in gold, bu
the high cost of operation has brough
about the closing of many mining
activities.
Nome took its name from Cape
Nome nearby, which was named a:
the result of a misunderstanding. L
means nothing unless it can be con-
strued to signify the nameless.' 1t was
discovered in the examination OF al
early chart that when the physica
| features of northwestern Alaska were
named one cape had been overlooked
The penciled query name was made
beside it. A copyist transcribed the
scrawled question as Nome and the
name has stuck.