Chititu Camp: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve

Region 11 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Inventory Unit Description: Chititu Camp is a historic site that exemplifies the domestic and industrial culture of a mid-twentieth century corporate mining camp. Chititu Camp is situated at the confluence of Rex and White Creeks in a drainage commonly referred to as the Chititu Drainage. The drainage is in eastern Alaska, on the southeastern edge of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, just south of the Nizina River, and about fifteen air miles south east of McCarthy AK. Chititu Creek runs into the Nizina River, whereas Rex and White Creeks converge at an area known as the confluence to create Chititu Creek. Blygh gulch and Jolly Gulch are tributaries to White Creek. Gold was the primary ore on the Chititu Creek drainage, although copper and silver were found in smaller quantities as well. The site is locally significant under Criterion A and D and meets all the criteria for a site under the multiple property nomination “Historic Properties associated with Mineral Development in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska, 1898-1942” (Bleakley, 2006). The sites areas of significance are Exploration/Settlement and Industry, its period of significance is 1902 to 1942. Although the landscape is in poor condition, it maintains its integrity through the collective contribution of its many extant buildings, structures, and objects. Most mining in the drainage was placer mining, carried out on the stream floodplain and adjoining benches. Starting with little more than a shovel and a gold pan, miners subsequently ground-sluiced promising creek bottoms and hydraulic mined the adjoining benches, although if the overburden was rocky or too deep, shafts and adits were sometimes utilized to get at the gold-bearing river gravels beneath the benches. Eventually claim consolidation and corporate ownership of the mining operations led to increased investment and more advanced and transformative placer mining technologies, the results of which are most evident in the contemporary landscape of the Chititu drainage. While independent miners usually built seasonal residences near their claims, the corporations eventually established several larger camps within the district such as ‘Koppustown’ and Chititu Camp. They also developed and maintained an extensive local transportation system, joining their mines and camps via trails and roads to the regional transportation network which connected with the nearest communities of McCarthy and Chitina. Several features of Chititu Camp could undoubtedly qualify for individual nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Others, more adversely impacted by the passage of time and the region’s harsh subarctic environment, clearly lack such distinction. Together these buildings, structures, and objects contribute to the integrity of the site as a whole. The spatial organization reflects the area’s topographical advantages and constraints, the diverse designs demonstrate technological innovation as well as the miners’ continuously evolving needs, the various construction materials reveal the full range of locally available options, the workmanship provides invaluable insight into the skills, engineering practices, and aesthetic preferences of the day, the feeling of isolation and abandonment reflects the boom and bust cycles characteristic of all mining regions in Alaska. When considered with the well-documented associations with prominent people and events, the site conveys a clear sense of its historic identity.

Chititu Camp: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve

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