4.6 GARDEN ISLAND AND MINERS' HOME SALOON
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Bowers, Peter M., Catherine M. Williams, Amy F. Steffian, and Robert M. Weaver (1998) 4.6 Garden Island and Miners' Home Saloon. In Historical Development of the Chena River Waterfront, Fairbanks, Alaska: An Archaeological Perspective, edited and compiled by Peter M. Bowers and Brian L. Gannon, CD-ROM. Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Fairbanks.
Operational Area G is located on the northern side of the Chena River in the area now encompassed by an asphalt parking lot for businesses located in the Samson Block: Samson Hardware, the Carrington Building, the Big I Bar, and Uncle's Pizza (now known as the Chuckwagon).153 This area was formerly referred to as the Riverside Block, a cluster of buildings (including the Miners' Home Saloon) in the Garden Island community built about 1905-07, and demolished or removed by 1923, when the new government railroad depot and tracks were built (Figure 4.60). The parking lot is bordered on the east by the northern approach to the Cushman Street bridge, to the west by Park Street (formerly North Turner), to the north by Brandt Street, and to the south by Shoreway Drive. It is located within Tax Lot 1, Block 1 of the North Addition Townsite, on lands owned by the Alaska Railroad. At the time of our investigations, the parking lot was leased by Jack Sexton and John Lounsbury.
The initial work in Area G was testing by means of backhoe trenches carried out in the summer of 1993. The results of the testing program revealed several historic features and numerous artifacts, including an intact buried cellar of the pre-1923 Miners' Home Saloon. This feature was subsequently determined to be eligible to the National Register. The late fall of 1993 was occupied with performing data recovery of a sample of the saloon's cellar. Additional historic features identified within the Riverside Block during the testing program have been considered avoidable through redesign of proposed utility locations.
Figure 4.60. Map of the Riverside and Samson blocks showing businesses present in 1920. The Riverside block lies between Cushman and North Turner streets. Modified from a 1923 map in the Engineering Department, Alaska Railroad Archives, Anchorage.154
Area G lies within the proposed construction right-of-way and northern approach to the proposed Barnette Street bridge. The limits of the Miners' Home feature lie about two feet below designed sub-excavation grades for the proposed roadbed. Following consultation with the SHPO, ADOT & PF, and archaeological consultants, it was determined that the proposed actions, if carried out, could destroy or alter significant buried archaeological remains. As a result, mitigative action was necessary.
Excavation of the Miners' Home cellar yielded an impressive inventory of artifacts dating to the gold rush period. A total of 9,408 artifacts were recovered, some of which are illustrated in Figures 4.61, 4.62, and 4.63. A plan view of the excavation grid and cellar configuration is provided in Figure 4.64, and a detailed profile of the cellar storage area is shown in Figure 4.65. Additional details of the Miners' Home archaeology are given in Appendices 1 and 5.
Figure 4.61. Sample of artifacts recovered from Area G.155
Figure 4.62. Sample of bottles recovered from Area G.156
Figure 4.63. Lamp stove recovered from Miners' Home Saloon, compared with advertisement in 1902 Sears catalog.
Figure 4.64. Area G: Map showing layout of excavation grid and features in Area G.
Figure 4.65. Area G: Profile along N94, south wall of the Miners' Home Saloon cellar showing bench and storage area (Feature 2).
Fairbanks grew because of gold discovered in the hills to the north of the Chena River, but its initial settlement and main development occurred on the river's south bank. As a consequence, the north side of the river became an important "trailhead" for transportation to the mines and, in the earliest days of the camp, was also used as a tent city by the miners. Wagon and sled roads, notably the Steese Highway, led to the mining camps north of town. Between 1905 and 1907, the Tanana Valley Railroad was constructed, providing narrow gauge rail links to the creeks.
Initially, a cable ferry service was established across the river, providing access between "downtown" Fairbanks and the area that would soon be known as Garden Island.157 Within several years of the founding of Fairbanks, attempts were made to build a bridge across the Chena. The first bridges were built from Cushman Street but after destruction by floods of at least two spans and a large part of Front Street in July 1905, the new bridge was placed at Turner Street (between Cushman and Barnette).158 This bridge was dismantled each spring to avoid breakup damage, and ferry service ran until it could be reconstructed after the ice had passed.159 A new steel bridge eventually replaced the wooden structure, once again positioned at Cushman Street.160 This structure was dedicated on April 20, 1917.161
Settlement of the Garden Island area began with homesteads belonging to Margaret Brandt, Jorgine Anderson, and the Zehnder's.162 Another large block of the area was used by Christian Heine for the market gardens that gave it its name (the slough that made it an island in the Chena River has since disappeared).163 The gardens and other agricultural ventures in the Fairbanks district were touted by the Fairbanks Commercial Club as evidence that the region could be an "agricultural heartland."164 Garden Island was gradually built up as local businesses and the Catholic Church developed their properties.165 In 1905, the Tanana Valley Railroad (TVRR) built a depot located approximately where the Daily News-Miner building is today (Figure 4.66).166
Figure 4.66. View to the southwest of Garden Island and the Fairbanks Waterfront, 1906. Note H.C. Davis Sash Factory and Samson Hardware signs, and warehouses at right of photograph with TVRR track in front of them. The Miners' Home Saloon has not yet been built. Charles Bunnell Collection [1.06], Alaska and Polar Regions Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Brumbaugh, Hamilton, and Kellogg ("Samson Hardware") store (Section 4.7), H.C. Davis Sash and Door Factory, and St. Joseph Hospital were among the first businesses or institutions to be established on Garden Island. Several warehouses were also added to the Samson Block along the railroad track.167 Meanwhile, other businesses, including the Alaska Daily Citizen building (1908), the Bevans' Boarding House/International Hotel, Pozzi's Second Hand Store, a barbershop, Kennedy's Grocery and Restaurant, and the Miners' Home Restaurant and Saloon (1907),168 were built between the depot and the river on what was TVRR right-of-way. This was referred to as the Riverside Block. These buildings had North Turner/Park Street to the west and undeveloped North Cushman to the west (Figure 4.67).169 An important historical note about the Samson Block is that this is where, in 1909 the foundry of Brumbaugh, Hamilton, and Kellogg, the first stamp mill in the Fairbanks Mining District was made.170
Figure 4.67. View of Riverside and Samson blocks in 1916, during construction of the steel Cushman Street bridge. Note Samson Hardware, Alaska Daily Citizen, and H.C. Davis Sash Factory. Smithsonian Institution [93-264], Washington, D.C.
In 1917, the Alaska Railroad (AKRR) bought the TVRR right-of-way and by 1923 had a bridge across the Tanana River at Nenana.171 The AKRR wanted clear use of their right-of-way to the river, and the Riverside Block building owners had no legal rights to the land they occupied. Therefore, in the fall of 1923, the waterfront was cleared to make room for a new depot and extended track.172 The Alaska Road Commission provided lots for the buildings in the Samson Block, requiring at least one NC Co. warehouse to be torn down.173 Some buildings, notably the H.C. Davis Sash and Door Factory building (now the Carrington Building) and the International Hotel, were moved to the west to their new location, but the Miners' Home Saloon building was "not movable," and was torn down (Figure 4.68).174 One other building in the Riverside Block, the Alaska Daily Citizen building, burned to the ground in 1920.175
Figure 4.68. View of Riverside Block buildings relocated to Samson Block in 1923. The H.C. Davis building forms part of today's Carrington Building. Note disturbance in foreground which represents the former foundation of the International Hotel. Candy Waugaman Collection.
Fairbanks publisher W.F. ("Wrong Font") Thompson provided an eye-witness account of the destruction of the Riverside Block in a column published in the fall of 1923.176 The Miners' Home Saloon and Restaurant had been largely dismantled with windows and doors gone, and the slab bar and linoleum being removed as he watched. The International Hotel was up on skids and waiting for rollers to be moved to its new home 100 feet to the west.177 After the Miners' Home Saloon was dismantled, some of its original timbers were incorporated in owner Frank Miller's residence at 223 North Cushman.178 The Miller residence was dismantled in 1981.
Meanwhile, east of Riverside Block, a sawmill built in 1906 was torn down by 1910, and the Immaculate Conception Church was placed on its present site east of North Cushman Street in 1911. North Cushman Street became well-defined and had wooden sidewalks, and became the main thoroughfare in 1917 when the new steel Cushman Street bridge was put in.179 The Alaska Road Commission later put a park over the debris of the Riverside Block, east of the extended Alaska Railroad tracks (Figure 4.69). The park featured the old TVRR steam-driven Engine #1, still on display at Alaskaland, where it was moved after the park was paved over for a parking lot.180 In 1921, Garden Island was incorporated into the city of Fairbanks, much to the satisfaction of those town residents who had envied their tax-free neighbors for almost 20 years181.
Figure 4.69. View of Garden Island circa 1940. Note park over the former location of the Riverside Block with TVRR Engine # 1. The double smokestack in the right background marks the F.E. Co. complex on Illinois Street. Candy Waugaman Collection.
The Miners' Home Building stood at the northwestern corner of the Riverside Block and was situated across (what would become) Brandt Street from the railroad depot. Its front facade faced North Turner/Park Street. It is described as "a rustic, two-story log structure with a shed roof,"182 measuring about 15x12 m (50x40 feet) in size. Proprietor Frank Miller advertised "Pool Tables, Moving Pictures, and Quaker Maid Whiskey"183 (Figure 4.70). Miller reportedly owned several other local bars and restaurants.184
Figure 4.70. Advertisements for the Miners' Home Saloon, 1909.185
The Miners' Home was aptly named, as the building also housed the local miners' union office during the organization's short life between 1907 and 1908 (Figure 4.71). The most famous incident involving the Miners' Home Building was the 1907 miners' strike, recounted below. When W.F. Thompson considered the loss of the saloon and its neighbors, he remarked that "in a day or two, and where once the miners rioted and shot at deputy marshals, where night and day foreign elements which did the hard work in the mines, drank and gambled without molestation, where printing presses rumbled and linotypes clicked, will be uncovered space."186
Figure 4.71. Photo of the Miners' Home Saloon, circa 1907. View to the southeast, showing North Turner Street to the right. Note United Mine Workers Union initials on right corner window. Charles E. Bunnell Collection [63-46-30], Alaska and Polar Regions Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
The Tanana Valley Miners' Strike of 1907. As the boom town phase of 1904-09 (Chapter 2) drew to a close in the Fairbanks District, individuals or small partnerships working claims began to be replaced by larger corporations with investors/owners and operators who hired crews to do the labor. A greater emphasis was placed on extracting placer gold by digging shafts in the winter.187 In the spring the dump was washed through sluices to extract the gold. Since gold was recovered during one limited season of the year, operating expenses and wages during the fall and winter had to be covered with loans or promissory notes against the spring clean-up. Crews worked two 10 hour shifts on the larger operations, allowing for a 4 hour break each day for machinery repair and clean-up.188 Wages in 1906 in the Fairbanks District were $5/day plus board. In the Klondike in 1906, laborers received $4 for a 10 hour day but it was believed, perhaps in part due to the threatened Tanana Strike, the 1907 wages would be closer to $5.189
The United Mine Workers Association formed on March 10, 1907 to protect miners from the dangers, both physical and financial, inherent in the mining industry at the time.190 According to mine owners outside agitators, principally the Western Federation of Miners, stirred up a hitherto peaceful and contented situation.191 The union established its position in favor of a higher wage for a shorter day: $6 for 8 hours for laborers. The Mine Owners and Operators Association quickly organized locally and made it clear that they would stand firm at the old scale of $5 for 10 hours192. Those who supported the operators' position considered wages high already, and felt that a further increase would drive many small operators out of business.193 A strike threat was formally announced on April 8th, with a start date of April 26, 1907 if demands were not met. The owners stood firm and the strike began as scheduled,194 at a time of the year when debts were highest, and immediate activity was required to recover gold from the winter dump while spring melt water was available.
An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 miners stopped work. The union was hoping that banks would demand loan payments, that shops would refuse to extend credit, and that claim owners might even call in leases that had a "continuous work" clause in them, but all these things failed to materialize.195 The owners' association arranged to bring in strikebreakers from outside, principally from Seattle where unemployment was high. Several other strikes around Alaska had already been broken by this method.196 According to Dawson newspaper articles, the Fairbanks was fairly successful at neutralizing the strikebreakers. They did this partly by publicizing their strike so strikebreakers could not be misled by the owners' association, and partly by sending "spies" to speak directly with incoming laborers.197 During the spring and summer not many strikebreakers joined the workforce and so not much work was done. It was a dry year anyway and the summer passed "without incident."198
As the struggle wore on, both sides stood firm. The mine owners obtained injunctions to prevent union men from picketing or harassing "scab" labor,199 while some miners successfully attached the winter dumps for their wages but were still not able to collect until they had gone back to work and worked the dumps.200 Restless men continued to drift out of town to the Innoko, Nome, Chandalar, and other locations. By the end of June, bitterness was growing on both sides and within other segments of the community as well. Business was paralyzed, the next winter's work was in jeopardy for lack of capital, and some feared the burgeoning town would be permanently hurt by the strike.201 A Fairbanks article cited in the Dawson paper202 reflected impatience with the situation. The article stated that the mines had already reached a critical point and full resumption of work would result in little or no profit. While the author did not see the need for a mine workers' union, he admitted blame on both sides of the stand-off, basically stating that neither side was willing to communicate, and that it was hurting the whole town.
Another article from about the same period203 states that many mine owners had given in and that "union men, at $5 a day, are going to work all over the district." While not explicitly stated, this implies that these owners had adopted the 8 hour day since the pay rate was not increased. The larger operators did not capitulate however, and were still inactive at the end of July.204 Finally, on August 27, 1907, the strike was suspended by the union to allow miners to get a grubstake and to give the union time to acquire outside affiliation and financial backing.205 Most companies were reported to have survived the summer . Without any formal announcement, it was understood that the union intended to resume the strike in the spring with demands of $5 for a 8 hour day and union recognition (closed shop).206
Despite the pending strike, feelings continued to run high. By this time, the miners considered the wage issue negotiable and the 8 hour day was the main contention.207 Jack Sale, a local merchant went out to the mines in June to show the miners how he could work a 12 hour day at their labor, but stopped trying after three shovel loads.208 Two attempts were made to end the strike (or prevent it from re-occurring). An early informal proposition reported in the Dawson Daily News was the offer by one owner to pay overtime for the extra two hours a day, which was evidently not attractive to the union.209 A proposal developed by a formal five-man panel was ratified by the owners but rejected by the union.210 By this time (winter 1907-08), there seemed to be consensus among the miners on the equivalent wage for a shorter day, or $5/8 hours as a demand. The Miners' Union Bulletin published a cartoon on March 23, 1908 showing unions fighting for $5/8 hours.211
Threats of violence from the miners grew during the winter, evidently fostered by the growing opposition of all other facets of the community. The town citizens went so far as to organize themselves into rifle companies, deputized and armed for trouble at a moment's notice. While this militia was never needed, there were several armed confrontations between strikers and marshals protecting strike breakers. In one such confrontation, probably in March of 1908, a striker named Louis Doazat fired five shots "at the deputies" but evidently missed, and then ran into the Miners' Home Saloon. He was later arrested in the union hall in the same building. A telegram was dispatched to the circuit judge asking that the licenses of the Miners' Home and California saloons be revoked because they were "resorts of criminal agitators and hotbeds of crime."212 Warrants were issued for other union leaders and they were eventually convicted on felonious riot charges and left town after their sentences were served, thereby permanently ending the strike. No "serious injuries" were associated with any of the confrontations in 1907-08.213 The miners in town formed a political party and continued to fight for their rights.214
Which side "won" the dispute is a matter of debate. At the time of the suspension in August, most of the operators on Goldstream and Pedro creeks had acceded to demands (evidently allowing the shorter work day), while those on Cleary, Ester, and Cripple creeks had held out.215 After the events of the winter, however, the owners had gotten the "worst" of the strikers blacklisted and run out of town along with the leaders convicted of riot.216 From an economic perspective however, it appears that Fairbanks lost out. An estimated $1,000,000 in gold production was lost and many miners left the area to prospect elsewhere.217 Clark218 argues that not only did men leave for the Innoko River gold rush and other wage labor prospects with the TVRR, but that those who did were the best of the independent and intelligent young prospectors who would have found gold and set up more companies in the district.
The Miners' Home Saloon differs from other local commercial structures of its time. By 1907, when the saloon was erected, most buildings used milled lumber from the local mills. Log construction, at least for commercial buildings, had all but disappeared by 1904-05. Photographs of the building show a two-story log structure with a full shed roof (Figures 4.71 and 4.72), and logs abutting a frame of posts rather than corner-notching. The design appears almost as if built on a frame structure with half-round sheathing. Nevertheless, accounts describing the destruction of the Riverside Block in 1923 note that, unlike the other buildings on the block, the Miners' Home was not worth moving because of its log construction.219 Also, historical accounts indicate that the owner of the building at that time used logs salvaged from the demolition to build his residence.220
Figure 4.72. Photo of the Miners' Home Hotel and Roadhouse during Prohibition, circa 1917-23. Note changes in fenestration on front wall of building. View to the east. Candy Waugaman Collection.
The 50x40 foot building included two bays, each about 20 feet wide, and each with three symmetrically-placed, double-hung sash windows on the second story (Figures 4.71 and 4.72). The roof projected in a slight overhang at the top, with no false-front parapet. Based on the photographs, the first floor had a height of about 10 feet, with the leading edge of the roof another 14 feet higher. Estimated second floor ceiling height appears about 8.5 feet. Four evenly-spaced sash windows run along the north side second story. Logs appear to average about 8 inches in diameter.
The main entrance to the saloon occurred at the northwest corner with double doors, and follows what appears to be the Fairbanks fashion of a corner-diagonal approach. One plate window flanked the doors on the front, with signboards on north and west walls above the doors. A door, likely the entrance to the second floor, appears at the south end of the facade, with a counterpart at the east end of the north wall.
Signs in historic photographs reveal some of the buildings functions. The earliest available photograph (Figure 4.71) advertises the place as "Miners Home Saloon/ Restaurant Summer Garden" with a board or banner on the side suggesting patrons "Go to Natatorium/ Swimming Tank/ Steam Bath Shower Bath/ and Plunge only $1.00." At the end of its life, the marquee for the building read "Miners' Home Hotel and Roadhouse," perhaps a concession dictated by Prohibition (Figure 4.72).
Overall, little changed with the exterior of the building. At some point, the first floor facade was altered, expanding the single window south by another four single-pane units. This may have created more light for the interior, but did not improve the structural integrity of the building. Sags in the log construction show from the earliest days, but this modification only exacerbated the condition, which shows clearly in the Prohibition-era photo (Figure 4.72).
The cellar excavated at the saloon site evidently lay under the north bay of the building. The main cellar dimensions measure about 27x18 feet (Figure 4.64), suggesting that builders provided little or no step-back for load pressures from the superstructure. A 12x12 foot alcove/extension existed south of the main room. The perimeter wall consisted of vertical log posts (some half-round) backed on the dirt side with a layer of half-round logs. Entry to the cellar was from the southwest corner, as evidenced by step features and a similar post and half-round retaining structure. No cellar door appears at this location in the facade, so access to the steps was from inside the building.
In the east end of the main cellar lay a portion of heavily charred plank floor, likely associated with a fire from a former stove. Indications of floor boards appear in other parts of the excavations, but not to the intact degree of the ones at the east end. An additional structural element (Feature 2) occurs along the south wall near the stove area. This bench-like feature had a dimensional lumber frame with stubby posts and cross-ties. Materials from this bench feature, at least an inner stringer, appear to have been salvaged during demolition. Details on the alcove, unfortunately, could not be developed through excavation. Contaminated soils were encountered in the center of the alcove, late in the field season. With insufficient time to deal with this situation, the area was abandoned. The substance, tested for environmental purposes, appears to have been a "coal oil," suggesting that the alcove may have been used for fuel storage.
Major findings of our archaeological investigations of the Riverside and Samson Block include the following:
The area known as Garden Island, in particular the Riverside Block, represents an important phase and place in Fairbanks' history. Not only was it in a sense the "trailhead" for the wagon roads and narrow gauge railroad leading to the mines north of town, but it also had a fiercely-independent status with regard to the City of Fairbanks. It was unincorporated, unorganized, and not annexed to the city until 1921. It lay only one block from the Tanana Valley Railroad Depot, and was on the "road out of town." One critic of the community, publisher W.F. Thompson, wrote that "the area stirred nostalgic memories," despite the fact that he had "pretended scorn for the Garden Island residents for their refusal to annex themselves to Fairbanks and share the civic burdens of schools, streets, and fire department."221
The Riverside Block and Samson Block together contributed several places and events important to Fairbanks' history. In the earliest days of the gold camp, the area boasted tent camps of the stampeders newly-arrived from Dawson, the Yukon River, and Valdez. After 1905-07, important buildings of the area included the Samson Hardware store, foundry, and blacksmith shop operated by three former Dawson residents, Raymond Brambaugh, Henry Hamilton, and Edward Kellogg. In this area, too, was located the Citizen's Mill, which in 1909 became the first ore-crushing mill in the entire Fairbanks District. This equipment for the first time enabled miners to explore the lode potential of the district, as opposed to just placer deposits. The Riverside Block included the building of the Alaska Daily Citizen, a newspaper published between 1910 to 1920.222 The Tanana Valley Railroad depot was built in this area in 1905, providing an important transportation link between the "Golden Heart City" and the remote mining communities such as Fox, Dome City, Gilmore, and Chatanika.
Archaeological data from the Miners' Home Saloon cellar has much to offer in understanding aspects of early Fairbanks' life and material culture. In contrast to the three-phase history of the California Saloon (i.e., early saloon, Prohibition/dry goods store, and post-Prohibition bar), the Miners' Home had a single phase lasting for only one decade. Thus, the saloon-related material culture is considered to be functionally "pure" in terms of assemblage composition and variability. This is discussed in greater detail in Appendices 1 and 10.
The heyday of the Miners' Home coincides with the final three years of the boom town period (1907-1909) of Fairbanks' history. During this period, the deeply-buried placer gold was still being high-graded from the richest deposits, largely by a workforce of unskilled laborers. The Miners' Home, true to its name, was "home" to many of these workers.
One of the significant factors about the Miners' Home is that it was considered to be a local working class establishment, "where night and day the foreign elements which did the hard work in the mines drank and gambled without molestation."223 The north side of Chena River may have been, in effect, "the other side of the tracks" in terms of ethnic diversity in Fairbanks. This pattern is in part supported by the archaeological record (Section 5.3 and Appendix 10), as several imported products in the Miners' Home assemblage suggest a preference for those products by the foreign miners.
In addition to the imported brands and the locally-brewed Barthel Beer (Section 4.3), the Miners' Home was known both by its full quart bottles, and in period advertisements, for "Quaker Maid" brand whiskey (trademark 13; Appendix 2). This product, manufactured by S. Hirsch and Co. of Kansas City, Missouri, appears to have been the "house" brand, of which two full bottles were found squirreled away (evidently intentionally) beneath the cellar floorboards.
Based on analysis of artifact frequencies (Section 5.3 and Appendix 10), the Miners' Home Saloon patrons were heavier consumers of hard liquor and wine than were their counterparts in the California Saloon. The imported brands found at the Miners' Home may reflect basic preferences for products from the home country, even though they were more expensive.
In addition to a large number of alcohol-related products (especially beer bottles: N = 71; wine bottles, N = 52; distilled spirit bottles; N = 54; and flasks; N = 34) and other items such as a bung wrench and beer tap hoses, we also found entertainment-related artifacts (e.g., poker chips and fragments of film). The celluloid film pieces suggest that movies were shown in the basement of the saloon (Figure 4.71). These materials add data to the scant documentation of activities that took place in this early Fairbanks establishment.
That Garden Island and the Miners' Home in particular were considered more unregulated is supported by the fact that Garden Island residents resisted for many years attempts by the city to annex them. The Riverside Block residents had little or no interest in paying taxes to the city, and were quite content with squatting on the land. They paid the price, however, when fires (such as the 1920 fire that burned the Alaska Daily Citizen building) broke out and were unreachable by the organized city fire department. The residents were finally evicted in 1923 to make way for the new government railroad.
One additional example of Garden Islanders' perspective is a carved wooden effigy figure shown hanging over the front door of the Miners' Home (Figure 4.73). The origin of this figure is uncertain, but it gained some notoriety in 1923 when it was stolen by members of the press corps in town to watch President Harding drive the golden spike for the Alaska Railroad.224 The "totem" was called the "Princess Alice" by the press , a reference to Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth, an East Coast socialite who became the wife of the Speaker of the House. The figure was on display for many years at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.225
Figure 4.73. Photo of the Miners' Home Saloon in 1920, after abandonment. An arrow points to the effigy hanging over the boarded-up front door. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of History [93-273].
All too often, histories are written about the rich and the famous, the politicians and capitalists who have a greater control of society and the written record. One of the most significant aspects of the Miners' Home Saloon lies in its key role in one of the more infamous historical events of Fairbanks' first decade; the miners' strike of 1907. The strike was part of an international labor movement felt throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. The Fairbanks strike represented the first attempt for organized labor to demand higher wages and working conditions from the mine owners. The fact that the United Mine Workers' Union had their office in the second floor of the Miners' Home establishes the link between the workers, organized labor, and this building.
Finally, the events of April 1908, in which a U.S. deputy was shot at during the strikers' riot, is an important in Fairbanks' history. It represents not only one of the very few (the only?) riots in the city's history, but it is also one of the few documented cases of the early days where guns were drawn in anger. A common myth about the northern frontier, and the wild period of rapid urbanization that followed the "frontier" period, is that guns were a common sight in the saloon districts. This is a common misconception fueled more by Hollywood and pulp novel images of the western frontier, than by reality. Indeed, modern Fairbanks' own "Golden Heart Dancers," and their gun-toting followers who perform during the towns' "Golden Days" celebration look more like a group out of Dodge City than they do the mining boom town of Fairbanks. As noted previously, observers of the early days stated that there were no gun fights in early Fairbanks.226
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