Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1921-02-04
BUILT ON D sand:
City Of Nome Must Soon Be-. Abant: b !
dOled !.
THE STREETS ARE TRAILS 0E MUD

The Eind4ng OF 1old 6rou9Ge '!S
mendous Rush; But With. the *
haustion' Of the Gold There is Moth.
ing to Make Residence Desirable
Nome, Alaska, has gone into its
annual winter Information, according
to newspaper dispatches, and IS ex-
pected toreturn. to life with but. little
vitality :; next spring. This remote
mining camp, which, after a meteoric
career and. growth into a city, threat
ems practically to pass out of eXis-
tence, is described in the following
bulletin issued by the. National Geo
graphic Society: ..
:. Nome is town which always
.hibernates- in winter. Situated on the
bleak north: coast Of; the. icy, storm
swept Bering Sea, close to-. the Arctic
Circle, it IS frozen in and showed in
for about seven months of the" year:
It's chiefaindustry, placer gold mining,
depends upon the use of running
water, therefore the activities must
stop when the water congeils. Rather
than spend? the long winter In the eX-'
treme cold waiting for the return of
mild weather, large part Of the pop
ulationI> >aof Nome has always. returned
To the Statesnin, the fall; making the
journey back to the north. in June
when navigation "opens. =. :, -,
90! A. Beach Of Golden Sands -
"Thes: over: might creature of an
unusual gold discovery, the town grew
up on site that probably could NOT
have: been worse fitted for a comnaYn-
ity habitation. 1t is open to the full
sweep of the violent storms and the
heavy, waves that often beat in, from
the sea It has a relatively narrow
beach and Immediately within.sis "a
strip of tundra frozen solid In winter winter
but sea Of mud during the open sea-
son. In this morass the town grew
UP. In the early days men and anil
mails foundered through streets that
were knee-deep in mud. Later the
principal thoroughfares were boarded
over. Each summer foolhardy new
comers build structures on the beach
only to have them wholly destroyed
by the blasts Of September when, all
most without warning huge waves
sweep to the edge of the tundra and
often into the town itself.
Gold was first discovered near
Nome in 1898, in one of the numerous
creeks that rise in the Hills back Of
the town and across the tundra to the
sea. This discovery was widely her
aided through Alaska and the. western
States. Thousands, ftiocked to the
'neighborhood in the summer OF 1899,
and the town was born. That season
the remarkable discovery was made
that the sand of the beach at the edge
of tho town was rich in gold, and,
thousands Of prospectors with crude
equipment. took out respectable for
tunes. The beach could not be filed
upon but anyone was permitted to Dig
there. This unique feature of the
Nome gold fields. drew more than 2G,-
900 people to the region the following
summer and the town grew into q
thriving city. Placer miners burrow-
ed into the sand like moles for, thirty
miles or more up and down the beach.
Use Of Machinery Reduced Town
"I3y the end of the 1900 season the
beach was exhausted of its easily OBJ
tainable gold and large part Of the
mushroom population turned away
from the community permanently.
Development of the gold deposits in
the creeks back Of Nome continued,
however, and the town settled to a per-
manent population of several thous-
and, with a municipal government,
water-works, electric lights, and other
convcniences of civilization. In the
years between 1910 and the outbreak
of the world war there was a marked
development in the use of dredges and
other machinery in the exploitation of
the creek deposits. This lessened the
number of miners employed by the
large companies and still further re-
strictcd the population of Nome,
though it remained important as u
gold field.
with the disturbed conditions aris-
ing from the War; Nome has been
threatened with economic disaster.
The county is still rich in gold but
the high cost of operation has brought
activities.
Nome took it's name from Cape
Nome nearby, which was named as
the result of misunderstanding. 1t
means nothing unless it can be con-
strued to signify the nameless.' It
was discovered in the examination. Of
an early chart that when the physical
features of northwestern Alaska were
named one cape had been overlooked.
The penciIed query nance was made
beside it. y copyist transcribed the
scrawled question as Nome and the
name has stuck"
MINISTERS FORCED TO BEG.