1347

Custom Nome Photograph Album, Highlighting Mining, 1900-1902 [131066]

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Mining Start Price:2,500.00 USD Estimated At:5,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
Custom Nome Photograph Album, Highlighting Mining, 1900-1902  [131066]
SOLD
2,500.00USD+ (625.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2021 Feb 11 @ 14:07UTC-8 : PST/AKDT
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Custom Nome Photograph Album, Highlighting Mining, 1900-1902

31 photographs, each 6.5 x 8.5”, plus one small male portrait, possibly Otto Daniel Goetze, the photographer who took the photos in this album. The album has been assembled in two parts: The first part consists of photos that may have been selected by the client to represent his own experiences and memories at, in and around Nome. The second part is a “mining Section”, devoted to, and probably specifically taken for the client by Goetze, probably of operations he or his family were involved in.

Goetze, the Photographer

Otto Daniel Goetze was born in Missouri in 1871, one of a reported 12 children. He moved West at a young age, heading up to Alaska for the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898 with one or more brothers. Their presence there was confirmed in the klondike Stampeders Register (G.L. Pennington, 1997) and in an online published biography from the Sophie Frye Bass Library in the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. While this is a significant Goetze archive, not a single photograph within this album is listed in the extensive inventory of the Goetze Collection at the Bass Library.

Goetze was one of about five key photographers who were in Nome at the start of the Nome gold rush. He ran a business known as the Alaska Photo Co., or “A. P. Co.” as noted on some photos. He was competing with Frank Nowell, Albert Barnes Kinne, B.V. Dubbs, Hester and possibly more. In 1908, G. J. Loman, a lawyer in Nome and his family with other commercial interests, purchased the studios of Kinne, Dubbs, Nowell and Goetze. They continued the photography business in Nome for at least two more decades.

This album is a bit different from others we have sold over the years. It appears to center on some specific mining areas, and may well be a commissioned work for a single miner or mining family, such that the speculation of the identity of the man in the back is either the man who commissioned the photos, or is Goetze himself. The commission of private photography was the staple of the mining camp photographer – whether in Nevada or in Nome. Indeed, even great western photographer Carleton Watkins was commissioned by several Comstock mining companies to record their mines and works during the 1870s.

A few of my notes accompany the photograph identifications. Some of these locations are listed on the J.G. Temple map of Jan. 1901 published by the Seattle Times. Certainly many are shown on the early USGS maps.

Nome Gold Deposits Background

The Nome beach placers were discovered in late 1899 on the heels of the Klondike gold rush. Probably known years before, it wasn’t until 1900 that the news traveled worldwide. It caused such a sensation that the US Geologic Survey sent teams into the Alaskan backcountry to investigate gold deposits. So many people from around the US and Canada were headed to the Klondike and Alaska gold fields that the Government geologists deemed it incredibly important to investigate the deposits and report to the public. The exceptionally difficult circumstances of getting there, doing work, and surviving were like nothing anyone had been through before. With public safety at risk, the USGS did a herculean job of reporting on the many gold deposits. Papers were published from 1900-on for the next decade describing in great detail what the real production was, from where, and at what relative cost.

In short, the Nome deposits consist of approximately five distinct and separate “beach sand” terrains, all the result of transgressive and regressive sequences of the ocean through geologic time, overlain by two major periods of glaciation. Each of these sequences eroded away the major lode gold deposits that were inland. The five transgressive-regressive sequences produced at least five different “benches”, each of which carries placer gold. More than five million ounces have been mined from these benches, which are still in production today, as is the “bench” that is under sea water today.

Inventory. The album is a gray thick paper album, about 10 x 12”, with photographs attached to each page. All notations are within the photographs, and there are no pencil marks anywhere in the album from an original owner.

Photo 1. A 358. Front Street. May 13, 1902. Nome Alaska. A busy day, but the only “action” is on the boardwalks. There is no significant signage. Only two wagons visible in the street.
Photo 2. A191. Reception of the New Golden Gate Hotel. Photo taken midnight. June 21, 1901. Nome, Alaska. ODG. There are perhaps 100 people posed in front of this hotel. It burned in July, 1903, as the result of a kitchen fire. While it may contain many of the business icons in Nome at the time, Wyatt Earp, Tex Rickard, and Tombstone Epitaph editor John Clum do not appear to be in the photo.
Photo 3. A.47. July 24, 1900. A. P. Co. This tent city appears to be up or down the beach from the main part of Nome, housing a mostly tent city. This is the first occurrence in the album of the term “A. P. Co.”, which was a seldom used designation for the Alaska Photo Co..
Photo 4. A 57. View of Nome Beach, Aug 1900. O.D. Goetze pho. The high tide and storm have left a ship thrown against Nome buildings along with other wreckage, including the possible stern paddle mechanism of a stern-wheeler steamer.
Photo 5. No identification. Clearly Nome beach. Wood buildings indicate c1901
Photo 6. A37. Last of the Old Skookum (ship). Sept. 1900. Nome. OD Goetze pho. Photographed by many, the Skookum left Seattle on May 18, 1900, arrived at Nome Sept 12, and was wrecked by 8pm in a fierce storm. Only 13 were on board.
Photo 7. No identification. Nome beach with tent city, c1900 shows shallow water beach miners. Of interest are stacked bags of possible gold-sand concentrates.
Photo8. No identification. Probably Nome right after a snow storm small wood buildings. No apparent town yet. winter, 1900
Photo 9. No identification. Nome and the access to the beach. J.E. Crane store at left. “Nome Life Saving Station” at right.
Photo 10. 28 backwards. After the Strom. Nome Alaska. OD Goetze. This may be the same storm of 1900 that is the subject of many of the photos in this album.
Photo 11. Goe. (Geo. -sic) Carpenter. Hearse May 13 1902. O.D.
Photo 12. A 174. First Fire in Nome. May 25, 1901. ODG (Looking down Steadman Ave)
Photo 13. A46. Panoramo west of town. July 24, 1900. A. P. Co.
Photo 14. A78. No identification. A. P. Co. Nome beach in rough seas, c 1900. Barge slammed into buildings.
Photo 15. A 26. View taken west of town. Nome Alaska. A. P. Co. (ten city on the other side of the bay), c1900
Photo 16. No identification. Boats beached at Nome, at north west edge iof bay. Paddle wheel ship Quickstep Hotel, Seattle, visible. Shows two collapsed buildings after storm.
Photo 17. Circle City, Alaska. E.A. Hegg (Eric A. Hegg) photographer sig. shows Circle City Saloon and the Hannah stern wheeler
Photo 18. A289. Monarch of the Nuggets. 108 ounces and two pennyweights, value at 1729.60. Nome Alaska, Sept 29, 1901. O.D. Goetze photo. This photo marks the beginning of the unlabeled “mining Section” of the album. From here on are mining photos, probably specifically taken for the client by Goetze. The first part consisted of photos that may have been selected by the client to represent his own experiences and memories.
Photo 19. No identification. O. D. Goetze photo. Placer miners working a bank in the low hills. 8 men, 4 dogs. Gold pans, rockers, long toms.
Photo 20. A268. Rocking out gold fraction bench on Glacer Creek. Nome Alaska. O. D. (almost obscured). Important photo showing two women, 4 men miners. Probably Glazier Creek off the Snake River, misspelled.
Photo 21. No. 1 rolow (Below?) on Dry Creek. Nome Alaska. O. D. Goetze Pto. Dry Creek was one of the first áreas mines, a tributary of the Snake River, the closest tributary of the snake to the sea.
Photo 22. No identification. Two men working a long tom. Trees in background.
Photo 23. A238. No. 3 below on Drlv Creek, Nome Alaska. O.D. Goetze photo. -six men working long tom at least 100 feet long. (Possibly Dry Creek misspelled)
Photo 24. A220. No. 2 below Driv creek. Nome, Alaska. O.D. Goetze photo. (possibly Dry Creek, Mispelled)
Photo 25. A34? Mining on Nome Beach. O. D. Goetze. Mining on one of the high banks. 4 men, 1 woman.
Photo 26. A245. Mining on Nome Beach. O.D. Goetze photo. Possibly same lady as last photo, diff outfit, same hat and dress.
Photo 27. A343. Mining on Nome beach. Nome Alaska. O.D. Goetze. 4 m4n in deep beach sand, with claim boundary behind, with another miner in that further claim.
Photo 28. No identification. Numerous long toms constructed parallel on a lower beach bench.
Photo 29. A248. Mining on Nome Beach. O.D. Goetze photo. 4 men, 2 women. Lower bench on the beach.
Photo 30. A 276. Snow Gulch. Nome Alaska. O.D. Goetze photo. There are two Snow creeks or gulches at Nome. One is near Nome, just off Hastings Creek. The other is a tributary to Glazier Creek, a tributary to the Snake River.
Photo 31. A 253. No. 5 on Rock Creek. Nome Alaska. O.D. Goetze. Rock Creek is one creek up drainage from Glazier , a tributary of the Snake River.
Photo 32. Unlabeled portrait of a young man.