• Wrangell Mountain Range

    Wrangell - St Elias

    National Park & Preserve Alaska

There are park alerts in effect.
show Alerts »

  • Shamrock Mining Plan of Operations and Environmental Assessment Released for Public Review/Comment

    The Park has released for public review the Shamrock Mining Plan of Operations and Environmental Assessment. The EA is available for public review and comment for one month. All comments must be submitted by July 3, 2013. More »

  • Chisana River Fire Grows, Impacts the Copper River Valley

    Smoke from the Chisana River Fire impacted the Copper River basin on the evening of July 18. Because the fire continues to grow anticipate varying levels of smoke impacting the area. The fire grew from 7,718 acres on June 17 to 25,566 acres. More »

History of the Chisana Mining District 1890-1990

Chisana Miners Reunion, 1914. Photo courtesy of Candy Waugeman, Fairbanks
 
History of the Chisana Mining District

Download the entire historic study by Park Historian, Geoff Bleakley. Complete with maps and many historical photos. 115 pages. PDF format

The scene of Alaska’s last important gold rush, the Chisana district played a key role in the history of interior Alaska. While few struck it rich, the resulting demand for materials and supplies helped establish regional transportation networks, encouraged supporting industries, and hastened the exploration and settlement of both the Copper and Tanana Basins. The Chisana district was particularly significant from 1913 to 1915, the period encompassing its discovery, stampede, and boom. It remained important through 1942, when war-time exigencies virtually ended local mining.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve historian Geoffrey Bleakley originally produced this history of the Chisana Mining District in 1996 as part of a broader effect to document, evaluate, and interpret the historic features still occupying the Chisana-Gold Hill landscape. That effort also generated two related studies: Carol Feldman’s “Chisana-Gold Hill Landscape: A Cultural Landscape Report,” and Geoffrey Bleakley’s nomination of the “Chisana Historic Mining Landscape” to the National Register of Historic Places.

This revised and expanded web-based edition is designed to replace the original paper version, which is long out of print.

Did You Know?

Wood Frog

The sole frog species within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve’s 13.2 million acres is the Wood Frog.