If you enter the copse of trees just up from the Treadwell Mine Pump House on the shoreline of Gastineau Channel, you will find the phrase \u201clife was good\u201d inscribed on a rock describing a place and time that existed 100 years ago. It\u2019s sometimes difficult to appreciate that you are living in good times until hard times arrive. In March 1917, the communities of Treadwell and Douglas were one month away from a catastrophe that would change the history of Alaska forever. Had it not happened, Juneau would be a very different place today. April 21, 1917 was the day the world\u2019s largest gold mine would suddenly and cataclysmically end.<\/p>\n
The story of the founding of Douglas and the Treadwell Mine is well known. A carpenter named John Treadwell was asked by associates in his hometown of San Francisco to investigate the gold strike at Juneau. He arrived to find that most of the promising claims in Silverbow Basin were spoken for, so he turned his attention to Douglas Island. There he found promising ore samples and moved to buy the adjacent claim at Paris Creek. It was owned by a prospector named French Pete who was eager to sell what he thought was a washed-out claim. He needed the money to open a hardware store on Front Street in Juneau. Once he had the land secured, Treadwell brought in an ore-crushing stamp mill, and it soon became evident that he would need more machinery, men, and money.<\/p>\n
By 1915, the Treadwell Mine had developed into the largest hard rock mining operation in the world. The mines tunneled to a depth of 2,700 feet below the surface \u2014 almost as far down as Mount Juneau is up. It employed over 2,000 men who worked around-the-clock shifts, 363 days a year. The sound of 960 ore-crushing stamps pulverizing rocks was constant. On the two days in the year that the mine shut down, the silence was so unnerving that people couldn\u2019t sleep.<\/p>\n
[Douglas marks 100-year anniversary of the Treadwell Mine cave-in<\/a>]<\/p>\n The two days off were Christmas and the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July was the only summer day the mines didn\u2019t work and to this day, it is celebrated in Douglas with extra gusto. Workers and their families were provided many benefits including health care, a dining hall, a nonprofit company store, and admission to the Treadwell Club which included a library, swimming pool, bowling alley, billiards hall, an 800-seat auditorium and even a darkroom. As April 21, 1917, approached, life was good for the citizens of Gastineau Channel.<\/p>\n Before the cave-in<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Alaskans were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska on March 30, but the outside world hardly noticed. For the first time in history, war would extend to the whole world and the U.S. had just entered the fray.<\/p>\n German submariners were torpedoing passenger vessels with U.S. citizens on board. In March of 1917, a German courier was intercepted and found to have in possession a German proposal for Mexico to enter the war against the U.S. in exchange for land lost to the Americans. In April 6, 1917, the U.S.entered the war and even in the territory of Alaska, that news dominated conversation. The newspapers of the time reported there was a call for volunteers in Douglas and that drills were being conducted with new recruits. The shouts of \u201cSquad left!\u201d and \u201cSquad right!\u201d could be heard on the baseball field in Douglas. Women were meeting to join the Red Cross and help in the war effort.<\/p>\n Even with the backdrop of war on everybody\u2019s mind, daily life was busy in the spring 100 years ago. The weather was unusually sunny after a hard winter in which three major avalanches roared down Juneau mountains. The first was on Mount Juneau, where a massive slide wiped out the road going to the Perseverance Mine, covering the road with snow 90 feet deep. The second was at the Alaska-Gastineau mine where two men were killed when a massive slide 300 feet wide took out 1,000 feet of power and telegraph lines. The third was in Sheep Creek above Thane where 300 feet of rail was wiped out. Although Douglas Island residents were not affected, they would have heard the terrifying roar of the slides and their sky would be darkened by the billowing clouds of snow powder ignited bythe slides.<\/p>\n The rivalry between Juneau and Douglas was alive and well. The two communities were positioned side-by-side but separated by water. A ferry boat called the Alma went back and forth across the channel. The first bridge between the communities was not constructed until the 1930s. Today, if you were to walk to the waterline from the Senate Building, you would go down a street named Ferry Way. A hundred years ago you walked this very route to catch the ferry to Douglas. The trip was a short one, but when you arrived, you were in a different time and place. Literally: The islanders had their own time zone. There was a 45 minute difference between the two communities who competed in all ways.<\/p>\n Beer was about to become illegal. The Douglas Brewery was advertising a going-out-of-business promotion and was selling and delivering cases of beer to local residences. In the previous year, Alaska had voted in a referendum 2 to 1 to ban the sale of alcohol starting in 1918. This came two years before Prohibition was made the law of the land in the form of a constitutional amendment. Some point to the sudden expansion of newly-franchised female voters for the support of the referendum. The Alaska Legislature was formed and met for the first time in 1914 and its first act was to grant women the right to vote \u2014 a full seven years before the U.S. Constitution was amended to ensure this across the nation.<\/p>\n The tax on alcohol was initially instituted for the purpose of funding education. Some old timers winked and swore that they \u201conly drank to support education.\u201d Representatives in the territorial Legislature were seriously concerned that the upcoming prohibition of alcoholwould directly impact school funding.<\/p>\n Many of the issues of today were being discussed 100 years ago. The Juneau High School debate team was facing off with the Douglas High School debate team on the issue of immigration. The question before the team was whether the U.S. should require a literacy test before granting citizenship.<\/p>\n The income tax that was recently instituted was being criticized because too many people appeared to be underreporting their incomes. There was a debate whether income taxes should become a public document so that people could tell if the high life that their neighbors were living matched the income they were reporting to the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n [How the Treadwell Mine collapsed<\/a>]<\/p>\n In 1917, Juneau and Douglas had more theaters than at any other time. People liked seeing news clips from the life they left behind. A hundred years ago, \u201cThe Rink,\u201d starring Charlie Chaplin, was playing in Douglas to good reviews. The new Mary Pickford film was due to hit town in a couple of weeks and reservations were being taken.<\/p>\n The steamer schedule to Seattle and Vancouver was posted in the paper with connecting trains to Chicago and San Francisco. The Princess Sophia was on the run and headed for its own date with disaster in the next year.<\/p>\n One hundred years ago, Mount McKinley (Denali) National Park was established and this was supported by the Alaska Delegation to Congress. James Wickersham led the effort to create the park to protect its wildlife and bring in oversight to its development. They argued that bringing in a government railroad would bring in visitors, and where there was nothing now, that one day visitors might beable to stay at a lodge in the park and enjoy the wonderment of the place.<\/p>\n People enjoyed watching baseball in the evening. The major leagues didn\u2019t start playing night baseball until the 1970s, but in Alaska, playing at night didn\u2019t mean playing in the dark. The Gastineau Channel League featured five competitive teams in 1917 \u2014 teams fromJuneau, Thane, Treadwell, Douglas and Perseverance. The Treadwell field was in the middle of town near the beach and drew large crowds. Baseball ringers were recruited from outside and were given lucrative \u201cjobs\u201d in the mines so they could be ready to play. The audiences for the games were measured in the thousands and a big part of the draw was gambling. After the regular season, teams would play challenge matches with Whitehorse, Skagway and Dawson City. These cities had baseball leagues as well and when theteams traveled north, hundreds of fans would travel with the team and the games would draw audiences estimated at 5,000. In 1917, the Perseverance team would be declared the best team in the north by winning the Gastineau Channel championship anddefeating teams from Whitehorse, Dawson City, Cordova and Seward.<\/p>\n Basketball March madness was at hand in Douglas 100 years ago. High school teams played at the Treadwell Natatorium for the channel championship. Treadwell claimed the title by defeating the team representing the Arctic Brotherhood. Both men and women played.<\/p>\n Disaster day and what followed<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n There was little warning leading up to the cataclysm of April 21, 1917. Looking back, the signs were there. The swimming pool was just about to reopen after cracks in its structure had been repaired. Engineers had noted the slight depression happening under the dining hall, and the rail line had sunk, but other areas had similar depressions that eventually halted. The difference may have been the 18.1 high tide that occurred that early morning.<\/p>\n At 11:30 p.m., engineers on a close watch observed water leaking into the mine. They sounded the alarm and the 350 men that were working below at the time began to evacuate. Some of the men were as deep as 2,100 feet below the surface in tunnels that extended below the waters of Gastineau Channel. Elevators brought the men to the surface in small groups at a time as the water poured in. Airpockets trapped by the incoming rush of water were being created below, causing great pressure. As the last two men were being hoisted up and out of the mine, there occurred an explosion of water up out of the shaft that observers estimated at 300 feet high.<\/p>\n