The July-August, 2019 issue of Alaskan History Magazine includes a collection of early photographs of the ubiquitous white canvas tent which housed thousands of Alaskan pioneers, from prospectors to doctors and from explorers to families. A few are shared below, and several which didn’t run in the issue are also shown here.
E. P. Pond, ca. 1897. [Winter & Pond photo. ASL-P87-0722. ]
Rear view of Marshal’s tent & barricade on Western Railway Company’s grade, Lowe River, Keystone Canyon, north of Valdez, September, 1907. Two men were shot in a dispute with Home Railway men. [Photographer P.S. Hunt, UAF-1980-68-44]
Glacier Creek Roadhouse, Nome, Alaska, July 13th, 1906. [photo by F.H. Nowell]
There are several signs in this photograph. The most prominent one reads: “Law office. Martin, Joslin & Griffin. Lawyers and mining brokers.” The sign on the tent to the left of the law office reads: “Bank of British North America.” Another smaller difficult to read sign on the law office appears to read: “Lots in A [illegible, possibly: 1/2] days addition [illegible].” Another sign on the law office appears to read: “Martin, Joslin & Griffin, mining brokers.” The last sign reads: “Office of Yukon Exploration Co. Falcon Joslin, manager. Mines, real estate, loans, investment.” The signs indicate this is in the Yukon Territory. Falcon Joslin lived in Dawson, Y.T., from 1897 to 1902. [UAF-1979-41-438. Falcon Joslin Papers]
Photographers Winter and Pond at the Taku Glacier.
Chatanika, Alaska, Fairbanks Mining District, 1912. [Photo by Basil Clemons. Harold and Leila Waffle Collection, Alaska State Library. ASL-P281-073]
Tent roadhouse, sign: “BEDS”, Ruby, Alaska. Undated. [ASL-P68-057.
Basil Clemons Photograph Collection, 1911-1914. ASL-PCA-68]
A tent at Twelve-Mile, June 12, 1898. Four men and a dog pose in front of tent on rocky beach. Two hold saws, one a pickaxe. A clothesline with shirts stretches from tent. Photographer’s number 30. [ASL-P201-030. Neal D. Benedict Collection, ca. 1900. ASL-PCA-201]
Tent store, Shushanna (Chisana), Alaska, June, 1914. Hand-written note across photo reads, “In God I trusted, Here I busted, Be God;” man sits in front of tent with sign reading “Store, Louis K. Schonborn.” [ASL-P178-149. Lorain Roberts Zacharias Collection, ca. 1903-1921. ASL-PCA-178]
U. S. Mail at Eldorado, Chisana, Alaska, June 22, 1915.
White Pass & Yukon Railroad hospital tent, Skagway, Alaska. Several men in hospital beds and in attendance. Photographer’s number 88. [photographer Harrie C. Barley, ASL-P75-020. Paul Sincic. Photographs, ca. 1898-1915. ASL-PCA-75]
A photograph from Alaskan photographer P. S. Hunt shows travelers gathered at a tent roadhouse at the north end of the Valdez Glacier, on the gold rush trail to the Klondike, 1899.
July-August, 2019 Issue, Vol. 1, No. 2, postpaid
Alaskan bush pilots and early aviators, Alaska’s first newspaper, The Esquimaux; the Alaska Steamship Company; a 1916 horseback trip across the Kenai Peninsula by Frank G. Carpenter; Alaska’s first commercially successful novelist, Barrett Willoughby; and an exciting childhood in the gold rush town of Nome
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