The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-05-05
FORTY MILE IS
 CONTINUING TO
 SHOW RETURNS
Hand Operations Give Way to Machinery in Fa-
 nous Mining District

. The oldest mining dlStrlct III the Interior of Alaska is coming forth with new production records that furnish strong support to the theory that the half billion dollars worth of gold taken out of the Territory to date is considerably less than the remaining store.
 Before the days of Klondike placer mining started on Forty Mile in Yukon Territory, and work ed up Forty Mile river into Alaska as early as 1882 For more than 50 years this district has been steady producer of gold for Alaska, with a total output to date in excess of $7000,000.
 And recent figures and operations reports show, according to Com missioner B. D. Stewart of the Ter ritorial Bureau of Mines, that this district may assume a greater im- portance in the future of Alaska gold mining than it has held in the past.
 There are four post offices in the district, all on the South Fork o1 Forty Mile river, and through the years the creeks and bench lands near these four towns have made living expenses for 75 or more per manent residents. For a decade ol more the gold production has rang , ed back and forth in the neighbor- hood of from S50.000 to $150000 1 Last year, due largely to the op- eration of the first dredge of the Walkers Fork Mining Company the district showed ar increasing revenue, and this year, according to MT. Stewart, the second dredge of the Walkers Fork Company, will be operating, and the indications are that well over 100 men will be | engaged in mining in this region
 Machinery Moving
 Particular interest attaches to this section by reason of the fact that a large part of the $7000,000 worth of gold thus far reported has been taken out by hand methods Heavy machinery is just moving in. The last published government bulletin on Forty Mile district was prepared in 1928 by Dr. J. B. Merty Jr., and this document showed a total of 38 separate mining opera , tors with working personnel of [ only 75 men. clearly indicating that ! the individual miner was holding his own.
 Two factors have operated to re- { tard the large-scale development of J this area-difficult and expensive transportation and unsatisfactory i experiences with earlier type dredges. Freight has been hauled , from Eagle, a distance of 90 miles or from Forty Mile on the Canadian i side, about the same distance, or from Dawson, slightly longer trip Freight Cost
 The freight cost ranged from to cents pound from Eagle in winter, to Is to 25 cents a pound for the same trip in summer. The winter rates from the Canadian towns ranged from 31a to 5 cents per pound Winter freight is hauled on sleds, but the summer haulage from Eagle is largely by pack horses, thus accounting for the high cost Efforts to build roads in from Eagle have cut but slightly into the difficulties of the trip, for a total of $200,000 was expended getting a road built 20 of the 90 miles. But t; little saving resulted in the use of automobiles on this first 20 miles, as the cost of trans s-shipping to pack animals for the remaining 70 miles offsets much of the saving The history of earlier dredging on Forty Mile river showed such ' operations practical, but a series 1 of circumstances prevented various owners from attaining sufficient success to encourage them to bring n additional equipment in the face of existing high transportation costs. The first dredge was put to york by Davidson Bros, at Sour tough Island, in Yukon Territory n 1907. This dredge worked success ully until 1912. when it reached the dge of the canyon walling in that 'egion, and had to quit. It was moved to other property in Yukon erritory A smaller dredge by the anne owners was worked for a time n 1907 at the International boun- 'ary line, and it too was then moved o other territory.
 At Pump Bar
 A third dredge was started on imerican territory at Pump Bar, our miles below the town of Frank in in 1907. but according to the eports to the Mining Bureau, it vas of the wrong type for this dis rict and was not success.
 In 1910 the first Australian type 'redge was shipped in from San Francisco where it had been built by the Risdon Iron Works. This machine operated successfully through 1914..It was laid up in win ter quarters at Franklin Creek That winter the manager went to war, and was later invalided home unable to work the dredge. For seven or eight year it was laid up