Seward daily gateway., 1925-07-22
FAIRBANKS PAPER TELLS OF STRIKE
 ON VALDEZ CREEK
DISCOVERY NOT TANNING OUT IN SUFFICIENT QUANTITIES
 TO MAKE TRIP PAY

CANTWELL, Alaska, July 14- Have got all information from relia- ble sources.
 Valdez Creek has been mined for 25 years by individuals and corpora tions. Length of creek 10 or 12 miles. Sixty-five miles from Cantwell and about 12 white men and 90 Indians are on the creek, making 42 all eli gible to stake claims. Creek has for years been staked from mouth to head of creek above timber line, five miles. Claims are being held for years at head of creek where it is impossible to do any sluicing owing to lack of water. Laughing Ole sent wire to man in Nebraska to warn him to look out and protect his ground, claiming that he had found pay on the claims adjoining. The situation is this. Ole went in this spring to try to locate claims and all he could find unstaked was fraction near 6 and z bench and also one more claim for himsel, so Ole only owns one claim and fraction for all his time and trouble
 He got water on his ground and concentrated his gold on bed rock banning as high as S3 to the pan out of the sluiceway. Any mining man knows what that means. He has only another man working with him in a small cut, and will do we'll if he makes winters grub stake.
 Carlson went in to protect his ground from claim jumpers who were stalking fractions and got excited over Ole's find, which is nothing but a con- tinuation of the pay between blanks on general run of creek. Valdez Creek is all heavy glacial action de- posit gold, very rough and not travel ing far. Immense boulders lie on bed rock which require machinery to ham, l dle or powder to bulldoze out of your way. The largest yearly cleanup was l S42, ,000 by big hydraulic plant which is now shut down and virtually in the hands of receiver owing to bad management or too much gravel mix. ed with the gold. No one seems to know. No individual miners have come out of Valdez creek in the past 15 years with anything like money. I will send you reliable map, copy of the district made by reliable miner who was in the country 15 years, who is now postmaster at Val deg creek. It is country where two months grub and a pack train of | two horses and go to foot of glacier at head of Susitna river. But no claims are to be had near the dig gings unless you stake betweeen Val deg creek and Windy creek on the Susitna Flats, which are 100 or 150 feet deep. The pumpman and four others here are waiting for more defi- mite information and we talked it over and are of the same opinion of the watchman who will send word to New York by tomorrow or next day. We expect a gang from Fairbanks but are not certain. The grubstake men from the pool halls of Anchorage left at D. m. but I think only two intend to go through.
 Ground All Tied Up
 No new arrivals yet. Oldtimers ad- init Valdez creek all staked, also all tributaries blanketed since Ole's find. No chance to locate ground by guess work. It is the best policy to go fully prepared If Larson comes back with a good report it will require a trip to Talkeetna to recording office. Rep resentation work records P. O. attor- ney all records relating to Valdez and vicinity with this information and a supply of provisions to last month or so. Late conner oftentimes lands on big money near discovery. The oldtimers have got her all tied up and the natives have staked for them also. This is the only sensible course to pursue in case of this kind and no matter the cost it is the cheapest.
 DcCOURCY.
 The above letter was sent to the Fairbanks News Miner from Cantwell by Matt DeCourcy. and is the most ac- curate information received from the