Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1995This thesis on the Rampart, Manley Hot Springs, and Fort Gibbon mining districts of Alaska provides the first comprehensive public history of prospecting and mining activity in these three districts within the gold belt of Interior Alaska. Spanning almost one hundred years, the history begins in 1894 and extracts material from early recorders' books, old newspapers, correspondence of miners whose dreams drew them to the gold fields, and U.S. Geological Survey reports which analyzed Alaska's natural resources and mining economy. It surveys mining development from stampedes during the boom years of the turn-into-the-twentieth-century through periods of decline and on into the modern, mechanized, open-pit operations near the beginning of the twenty-first century. It concludes with an extensive annotated bibliography designed to assist other researchers in finding specialized, in-depth information about the three districts. <p
