ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

History of American Towns--Nome, Alaska, in the beginning,gold rush

Updated on June 23, 2015

Historic sign

   The annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which finishes in Nome, commemorates the 1925 serum run.
The annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which finishes in Nome, commemorates the 1925 serum run. | Source

Gold rush

The History of Nome starts with the gold rush. Gold was first discovered in Alaska in 1880 near Juneau. In 1896 gold was found in the Klondike region of the Yukon Territory and that started the gold rush. It continued until the last major gold strike in 1902.

There are two stories as to how Nome got its name. The most prevalent is that the name came from Cape Nome about twelve miles away. A British mapmaker copied an annotation of a British officer that indicated no name. The note was misconstrued to C.Nome or Cape Nome

The other story is that the city founder Jafet Lindeberg might have given the name after a Nome Valley in Norway.

Whatever the truth the name stuck because in 1899 local miners and merchants voted to change the name to Anvil City but the United States Post Office refused to change it.

Note on sources.

 Data for this hub has come from “The Complete Siberian Husky” by Lorna B. Demidoff and Michael Jennings. This book gives not only a history of Siberian Huskies but one of Alaska as well.

 Wikipedia article on Nome, Alaska.

Tent City

Library of Congress Picture
Library of Congress Picture | Source

Boomtown

 It was in 1899 that Nome became a boomtown when prospector at Daniels Creek found gold. It became a tent city to accommodate all the new population. Dog teams were essential for transportation as winter ice blocked access to the sea. There were probably more dogs there than any other place in the world.

 Anyone who has read or seen Jack London’s Call of the Wild probably has a pretty good picture of what things were like back then. According to the cited book on Huskies the inflated cost of a boomtown and careless living left a lot of miners less than prosperous. “Often the richest man in town was the ‘swamper’ whose duty, or privilege, it was to sweep the sawdust, rich with gold dust…from the barroom floor.”

Dogs

 Therefore dogs became valuable and treasured possessions and much conversation and stories, even tall tales were told about their dogs.

At that time the dogs were as varied as the people in that place. And were usually large strong and prone to fight.

Gunnar Kasen and dog Balto

Source

Robert Sorlie and the Idiarod team near Nome

Creative commons attribution share alike 2.0 generic licens. author Flicr user Ra 64
Creative commons attribution share alike 2.0 generic licens. author Flicr user Ra 64

The All Alaska Sweepstakes

 Allan “Scotty” Allan proposed a race to prove who had the best dog team. The Nome Kennel Club was formed in 1907 and drafted rules which included that the dogs all be registered with the club, drivers had to be members, any number of dogs could be on a team but they all had to come back.

A course was laid out from Nome to Candle and back—408 miles with varied conditions-sea ice, tundra, mountains, timber, glaciers, and a valley almost always in a blizzard.

In 1908 a Russian fur trader, William Goosak introduced what is now the Siberian Husky. A do totally different from those they were used to seeing. Siberians are compact, small and docile compared to the fierce large and angry dogs used locally.

They entered the race and the Huskies came in third due to the driver making strategic errors.

North to Alaska

The Great Race of Mercy became The Iditarod

 In 1925 diphtheria broke out in Nome and there was no way to get serum to them except by dog sled. The nearest supply of serum was in Anchorage, which is 955 miles away. It could be transported to Nenana, 297 miles north of Anchorage. No planes were available so the only means of transporting was by dog team 658 miles. In the best weather it took the U.S. Mail teams 25 days to cover that distance in the conditions that prevailed in winter.

 Gunnar Kasson who reached Nome on February 2, 1925 drove the last relay team. The 658-mile trip was made in five and a half days.

The lead dog Balto is honored with a staue in Central Park, N.Y.

This race made the Siberian Husky the most popular race dog and the Iditarod Race is a regular event to celebrate it.

 

A
Nome, alaska:
Nome, AK, USA

get directions

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)