Alaska Gold Rush History & Genealogy

Map

The Homer district (fig. 10) is the area drained by the Kenai River below and including Skilak Lake, by streams flowing into the Gulf of Alaska from Callisto Head (the promontory east of Bear Glacier) to the western end of the Kenai Peninsula, and by streams flowing into Cook Inlet from the western end of the Kenai Peninsula to the Kenai River. It also includes the Chugach and Barren Islands.

Most of the small amount of placer gold mined in the Homei district came from beach placers at Anchor Point (1, fig. 10), north of Ninilchik (2, fig. 10), and possibly at other places along the east shore of Cook Inlet. The most extensive operations were at Anchor Point, where a ditch 2 miles long brought water for sluicing fine gold from a thin layer of beach gravel about 2 feet below the surface. Mining was carried on intermittently from 1889 until as recently as 1911. All the beach gold was derived from glaciofluvial deposits. Rumors of the presence of platinum at Anchor Point have not been confirmed.
Most of the bars and gravel terraces along the Kenai River contain a little fine gold, as do the gravels of other streams in the vicinity, but with the possible exception of a place on the Kenai River near the head of Skilak Lake (5, fig. 10), there was no suc¬cessful mining in the part of the Kenai River basin in the Homer district. For several years a little small-scale mining was carried on at Indian Creek (3, fig. 10), but an attempt to establish an elaborate hydraulic operation there in 1903 failed. The gold at Indian Creek and along the Kenai River was derived from thick glacial and glaciofluvial deposits that had their source in the Kenai Mountains.
In the early 1900’s, Morris, Sheridan, Kuppler, and Lee (4, fig. 10) staked a claim on the flat in front of McCarty Glacier near Nuka Bay, where they found large pieces of vein quartz carrying chalcopyrite. The bedrock source of this float material was not discovered.