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In the toils of
Wall Street. I build a power plant. Back to Colorado. Shipping ore from the
Ariadne. I sell out for $100,000.
Pigeonholing
my railroad activities for the time being, I returned to Valdez and proceeded to
locate a water right in Solomon Gulch with the intention of supplying power and
light for the town, which was then being furnish by a steam plant. This,
together with another visit to the interior in the region of Wrangell on behalf
of my New York syndicate, occupied several months, during which I experienced
plenty of hard work and many disappointments. There was an abundance of copper
but in such inaccessible localities that I was compelled to pass them by, and
returned to Valdez with no tangible results other than a fund of information.
This information inevitably led to the same conclusion: that if the natural
resources of Alaska were to be reached and developed, there would have to be
railroads. Everywhere was this stumbling block, and it was not possible to
consider any project without facing the problem of transportation.
Therefore,
in spite of my previous disappointments, I again tackled the proposition and
organized the Copper River & Tanana Railroad Company, secured another right
of way through Keystone Canyon, and started east for capital. In New York I met
Duncan B. Cannon, treasurer of the Brooklyn & Coney Island Railroad. Mr.
Cannon introduced me to the firm of Gifford, Hobbs & Beard, in the Hanover
Bank Building on Nassau Street. These gentlemen, one of whom was the son-in-law
of James J. Hill, the railroad magnate, made a contract with me to build the
road on approval of their engineers. A Canadian surveyor named Rose, with
assistants, was sent out to report on its feasibility and cost. After months of
waiting, the engineers came back with a report admitting the advantages of the
road, but recommending adversely because of cost. As they had based their
estimates on a Pennsylvania Railroad scale, this was not surprising. Gifford,
Hobbs & Beard, however, claimed that I should pay several thousand dollars
toward the expense of examination. This tied up my proposition, and as my right
of way was good for only a year, I had to act quickly to save anything.
I had
about given up hoe, when one morning, as I was hurrying up Broadway, I collided
with a man. For some reason a conversation ensued and he said that his name was
Bradshaw; that he was about to build a railroad in Alaska; that his company was
called the Valdez & Yukon Railroad, with a capital of ten million dollars,
half of which was in the treasury, along with $250,000 cash. He also stated that
A. W. Swanitz was their chief engineer and had already been dispatched to
Alaska, but at Seattle he had learned that the Iles road had the right of way,
and he was awaiting instructions. I told Mr. Bradshaw that I was Mr. Iles, and
that if his company really meant business, there was no reason why we should not
get together. He then took me to 70 Wall Street and introduced me to Ambler J.
Stewart. Mr. Stewart is the brother of Judge W. F. Bay Stewart, a Pennsylvania
millionaire, who was president of the Valdez & Yukon. Mr. Stewart said that
if I could demonstrate the validity of my right of way they would be willing to
join forces with me in building the road. I agreed, and made an appointment for
a meeting at the Gifford offices the next morning, at which I introduced him to
the firm and left him. The meeting was satisfactory, and a contract was made
wherein I was to receive $750,000 in stock and the privilege of selling an
allotment of bonds on the same terms as Mr. Stewart. This had the effect of
making me a minority stockholder and I lost my controlling interest.
Swanitz,
the chief engineer, was given full authority to build the line, the New York
office merely furnishing the funds. He began the work by sweeping my plans into
the discard and locating a town site about two miles from Valdez, where he built
a $100,000 dock and located the terminal buildings. This action set the old town
of Valdez by the ears, and the antagonism engendered resulted in a boycott of
the wharf, the railroad, and the new town site, so that not a ton of freight
came over the dock nor could a lot be sold. Swanitz, who in his sober moments
might have been a good engineer, did not have enough of them to offset the
forces arrayed against him and was carried aboard the steamer, after squandering
about $400,000 of the company’s money, which I had deemed sufficient to build
twenty miles of the road twice over, and Valdez heard no more of him.
While this
railroad work was going on, I was developing my water right and building a power
plant. With a force of two men and myself, we constructed a concrete dam across
Solomon Creek, giving us a head of 410 feet at the wheel. From this we laid a
wood flume, first cutting a foundation in the rocky walls of the canyon. This
was a difficult piece of work, and for several hundred feet we drilled holes for
blasts while hanging in rope slings suspended over the cliffs. Tools were scare,
an ax doing service for a hammer, and I did the sharpening of the drills by
heating them in a cook stove, using a boulder for an anvil. In time we completed
the grade, and the electric company came along one day and leased the plant for
two hundred dollars a month.
Having
established an income, which would provide for my wife and relieve me of that
worry for the time being, I set about to regain the fortune which had been lost
in my railroad ventures. During this time I had retained my ownership of the
Ariadne, my mine in Colorado, which I knew would produce some capital in time of
need. Therefore, having arranged my affairs in Alaska so that I could absent
myself for a while, I returned to the San Juan, where even single-handed I knew
that I could take out enough ore to make me a decent stake by the time I was
ready to return to Alaska. At Silverton I hired a burro train to take my
supplies up to the mine. I found the workings all in good condition, but the
winze on the third level, where I wanted to work, was half full of water. This
was overcome by putting in a stage at the water level, and I began work on a
small streak of ore on the footwall of the lode. As I shot out the quartz the
streak widened, and in a week I was well into the vein under the ore step above.
Tossing the broken mineral onto the stage, letting the waste drop into the
shaft, and loading the ore into the bucket, I would climb the ladder to the
level above, windless up the loaded bucket, and dump it into the car. When the
car was loaded, it was run out to the dump, the ore put into sacks, and piled up
until I had a car shipment. As I drove ahead in the drift the ore streak
gradually widened until the entire face was mineral, and one morning I took a
sample from the foot wall that looked so good that I rushed to town and caught
the assayer just as he was putting through a batch of assays. The ore proved to
be worth $370 to the ton! I had nearly two carloads of ore sacked, and continued
to push the drift ahead, with no change in the vein.
One
afternoon, while putting in a shot, I heard some one descending the ladder, and
presently a light appeared coming along the drift. It proved to be Colonel E. C.
Condit, a well-known promoter around the San Juan and a man who had brought many
thousand of dollars into the district. He said he had heard my work at the mine
and wanted to see it; that if terms could be arranged he would include the
Ariadne in a company he was organizing. He made a careful examination of all the
workings, and said: “I will pay you $100,000 in easy payments in money,
300,000 shares of stock in my company, and if you will come to Silverton I will
give you $5,000 to bind the bargain.”
I did not
reply for a few minutes, during which my memory floated back to the time when I
was offered $75,000 and the mine was only a prospect. Experience had taught me
since then that it takes capital to develop mines, and while I could make a good
living working the mine by myself, the time would come when a deeper mining
would call for more money than I could command. So, turning to my visitor, I
replied, “Colonel, you’re on!”
In
Silverton I received the first payment of $5,000, and the following afternoon
took the train for Seattle, arriving there just in time to catch the “Santa
Ana” for Valdez.
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