**Alaska Mining History — Page 2 of 3
Prospecting in the Interior followed discovery of the Klondike in Yukon and the Fortymile in Alaska. The Fortymile district, discovered in 1896, has produced over 550K ounces of placer gold. By 1899 placer gold was discovered in Nome and led to an 11-year surge of miners that produced 46 million dollars worth of gold. The Cape Nome district has produced 5 million ounces and sparked mining in the Council-Solomon district that has reached 1 million ounces so far. The off-shore placer gold resource at Nome is known to be large; mining of this resource in the late 1980s was undertaken with a large bucket line dredge. Felix Pedro discovered gold on 
Goldstream Creek near Fairbanks in 1902. By 1905 the Fairbanks district production had reached 6 million dollars a year. The Fairbanks district is the largest gold producer in the state with 11.84 million ounces in total production from hard rock and placer sources. The Ft. Knox open pit was commissioned in 1996 and has produced 3 million ounces of gold.
The Kennicott copper deposit was discovered by Clarence Warner and Jack Smith in the early 1900s. It eventually proved to contain the largest and richest copper ore deposits ever found. This mine was commissioned in 1905 and operated 33 years producing 590K tons of copper and 9 million ounces of silver before closing.
The Hot Springs and Tolovana-Livengood districts, mined in the same era and adjacent to the Fairbanks District, have produced 580K and 530K ounces, respectively.From 1908 to 1910 Iditarod joined the gold rush districts and produced over 1.5 million ounces of gold. This centrally located discovery led to others in the area including the Innoko-Tolstoi-Ophir district at 730K ounces and the Aniak-Tuluksak district at 588K ounces of production.
A high-grade gold deposit was discovered between the Matanuska and Susitna basins in 1886 and became the Independence Mine. The mine contributed almost 172K ounces to the Willow Creek Hatcher Pass district’s production of 666K ounces.Before the Klondike gold rush in 1896, two Creoles named Pitka and Sorresca made discoveries along Birch Creek and caused several prospectors to arrive at what is now known as the Circle mining district. The Circle district has produced 1 million ounces of gold.
**This is an expert from a 2006 report entitled Alaska Mineral Industry, produced by State of Alaska Dept. of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development and is in the public domain.
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