In order to meet the FNSB road standards for public access, Reeves proposed to build a minor collector with 60’ of ROW within the 100’ access easement. Reeves was proposing to use a 100’ wide access and utility easement granted by the FE company when they owned all the placer claims in the area. The train rides provided a narrative to paying visitors of what gold mining was like during the dredge operations. 8 by building a replica of a narrow-gauge railroad that served the goldfields from 1904 to 1926. Godspeed was upgrading the operation at Gold Dredge No. It was my job to process a preliminary plat application by Reeves to subdivide a US Mineral Survey (USMS) adjacent to the Gold DredgeĬatwalk photo indicating location in oblique 1987 aerial (shown lower left below) used to scale first draft exhibit of conveyors. I first became involved in the kerfuffle in 2012 when I was a platting officer at the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB). That company is named after their first 25 passenger river excursion boat, Godspeed which started the local family tour business in the 1960’s. Godspeed operates a fleet of three large replica stern wheel paddle boats on the two main rivers in Fairbanks. Recently it has been embroiled in a lawsuit over a 100’ wide access easement between the original developer, John Reeves now operating as Fairbanks Gold, LLC and a local tour operator named Godspeed Properties, LLC. Since being converted to a tourist site in the 1970’s it has been owned by three different operators. It has been open to the public during summer months for tours of the dredge, mess hall dining at the old bunkhouse, small conferences, and gold panning for a fee. In 1984, it was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.
The dredge was named an Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1986. 8 cut a 4.5-mile (7.2 km) track and produced 7.5 million ounces of gold.įNSB GIS exhibit showing Gold Dredge #8 in pond between TL-2 & 9 on portions of USMS 851 & 1643. Starting in the 1920s, water was brought to the area through the 90-mile (145 km) Davidson Ditch for placer gold mining. It is located on the Old Steese Highway between Fairbanks and Fox in the central part of Alaska. 8 was operated by the Fairbanks Exploration Company (FE), a subsidiary of the United States Smelting, Refining & Mining (USSR&M) out of Boston, Massachusetts from 1928 to 1959. These small independent operations were replaced by heavily financed mining exploration corporations from the lower 48 States.
They were no longer productive for small mining operators with pans, picks, shovels, and sluice boxes. It was one of eight huge floating stacker dredges which ate up gold bearing rock left behind when the early drift mines had been sold by the early miners. One very lucrative tourist venue is an abandoned gold dredge in Fairbanks. They come in huge cruise ships to disperse throughout the interior to experience the lore that was Alaska in golden days of yore.
But this one involves busloads of summer tourists. Just south of the arctic circle 160 miles in Fairbanks, Alaska there is a new gold rush. while claim disputes during the gold rush in the early 1900’s continues today long after the paystreak has paid out. The biggest was the boundary survey between Canada and the U.S. As a surveyor in Alaska there are tales of travails in the field which appear in many journals.
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