Bremner Historic Mining District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
Region 11 Park Cultural Landscapes Program. 2005. Bremner Historic Mining District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 100058. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. NPS Alaska Regional Office, Anchorage, Alaska / CRIS-CL Database
Inventory Unit Description: The Bremner Historic Mining District (BHMD) is located approximately 30 miles southwest of the town of McCarthy in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. The District is a regionally significant gold mining landscape, discovered and developed in the early to mid-twentieth century during the Klondike Gold Rush and Great Depression eras. Encompassing approximately 14,000 acres in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST), south-central Alaska, the District occupies a mountain pass between the North Fork of the Bremner River and Monahan Creek in the Chugach Mountains. Significant elements of the Bremner Historic Mining District include an important placer mining site and associated camp sites, four discrete lode-gold mines, a mill site, a well preserved transportation network and numerous historic archeological sites associated with placer and lode-gold mining. The period of significance for the BHMD is 1901 -1942. The Bremner District is a historic vernacular landscape with exceptional historical integrity that preserves a broad spectrum of mining technologies and infrastructure, existing as standing structures, surface remains, isolated artifacts, and archaeological sites. In the absence of major disturbances, the District is an exceptional example of a small-scale mining landscape, rarely so well preserved. The District includes several sites. The 'Maze' site is one of the best examples in the park of non-mechanized, placer mining systems. The Yellow Band Mining Camp is one of the region’s most complete, containing not only the typical housing and office facilities, but also a sophisticated hydroelectric system which provided electricity to the entire valley. The Grand Prize, Sheriff, and Yellow Band Mines are all outstanding examples of remote, lode-gold mining operations, each containing a variety of buildings and structures associated with early to mid-century lode-gold mining operations. The Lucky Girl Mill and Mine site contains an un-collapsed adit (sealed) and assay shed, as well as a collapsed mill structure that provides the Park with a textbook example of the flow processes of early to mid-century load-gold quartz mills.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Region 11 Park Cultural Landscapes Program
- Date of Issue
- 2005-03-04
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- AKR , WRST
- Keywords
- adit, archeology, Asa C Baldwin, assay shed, Exploration-Settlement, Extractive Facility, gold mining, historic vernacular landscape, hydroelectric power, Industry, Klondike Gold Rush, lode-gold mine, McCarthy, mining camp, mining history, placer mining, tramway, transportation