Mining Hall of Fame Members - Alphabetical
Members by Induction DateA-B, C, D-G, H-L, M-P, Q-S, T-Z
Kelly Adams | Kelly Adams spent much of his 60-year career in mining on Prince of Wales Island. Adams, along with partner Don Ross, discovered the Ross-Adams uranium-thorium-REE deposit on Bokan Mountain near Ketchikan, Alaska's only commercial uranium mine, which operated intermittently from 1955 to 1971. Bokan Mountain is the now the most well-known REE deposit in Alaska. Later, Adams mined placer gold in the Klondike of Yukon, Canada from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. |
Alvin Agoff | Son of a Russian immigrant, he grew up in the Iditarod Mining District and mined, trapped, freighted, built cabins there for decades. |
Thomas P. Aitken | Arguably the most successful small scale mine developer during the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush; worked both lodes and placers in Alaska and the Yukon. |
Bridget Mannion Alyward | Emigrated from her home in Turlough, Ros Muc, County Galaway, Ireland to the United States in 1886 seeking a better life. She mined gold in the 40 Mile district years before the Klondike discovery and upon her return to Ireland, established an educational fund with 40 Mile gold—which still thrives today. |
Karl Alvin Bachner | Born in Fairbanks, Karl Bachner was part of a pioneering mining family from Livengood. In 1953, he joined his father, George Bachner to form Kenai Chrome Company to develop rich chromite deposits near Seldovia. In 1955, their firm produced 20 percent of the nation's metallurgical chrome output. Kenai Chrome Company ceased activities in 1958 due to competition from overseas producers. In later years, Karl's firm, Bachner Northwest, would build landmark buildings throughout Alaska |
Robert Baker | A pilot who urged geologic investigation of red gossan exposed along Ikalukrok Creek in the DeLong Mountains, leading eventually to the devolopment of the Red Dog Mine. |
Byron S. Bartholf | Represents a large family group of at least nine that was instrumental in the development of the gold lodes of the Willow Creek mining district. Family discoveries include the Gold Bullion, Mabel, Gold Cord, and Lucky Shot deposits. |
Alan Mara Bateman | An important geological consultant for the Kennecott Copper Corporation mines in Alaska during the early 20th Century. After working for more than a half century as the editor of the journal Economic Geology, he died in 1971 at his home in New Haven Connecticut at the age of 82. |
John Beaton | Co-discovered the Iditarod district with William Dikeman. |
Earl H. Beistline | A mining educator at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and a lifelong promoter of the mining industry in Alaska. |
Rhinehart M. "Rhiny" Berg | He discovered the important Bornite copper-cobalt deposit in the Brooks Range. |
Clarence Berry | Prominent Klondike and Interior Alaska miner |
Charles G. (Riz) Bigelow | Widely recognized as one of the most successful mineral exploration geologists in Alaskan history, Riz led exploration teams that resulted in the discovery of the Arctic, Greens Creek, and Pogo deposits and many others, some of which are now operating mines. |
Donald Paul Blasko | Published technical papers on gas and oil resources in Alaska and managed mineral resource projects related to ANILCA, ANCSA, and RARE II. |
Stephen Birch | Founder and developer of Kennecott Copper Mines |
Jack C. Boswell | Engineered the development of the rich Cripple deposit and helped build the giant FE machines that were used to dig deep placer deposits. Published historian of USSR&M era. |
Frederick Bradley | A successful manager of the Treadwell and A-J Mines, Juneau. |
Alfred H. Brooks | The Chief Geologist of U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska. |
John Brynteson | One of Nome's 'Three Lucky Swedes' - an experienced hard-rock miner and the discoverer of the Cape Nome district. |
Wallace M. Cady | A USGS geologist who, with colleagues, produced The Central Kuskokwim Region, Alaska, a geological framework of a 5,000 square mile area centered on Alaska's premier mercury mining region. |
Stephen R. Capps | An outstanding regional geologist that specialized in the study of Alaskan placer gold deposits in glaciated areas and stood among the first to study strategic minerals in Alaska. |
Ellen (Nellie) Cashman | The barely five foot tall Irish immigrant Ellen (Nellie) Cashman was a quintessential gold mining stampeder who participated in many of the North American gold-silver rushes of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. |
Alexandre Choquette | Discovered gold on the Stikine River which brought Americans in number into SE Alaska. |
John P. Clum | An Indian agent, mayor and newspaper publisher in Arizona who later traveled to Alaska to work as a Postal Inspector and established at least ten post offices in Alaska. |
Earnest B. Collins | Pursued a long and successful career in interior Alaska as a placer miner, a lawyer, a Alaska Territorial legislator, and a delegate at the Alaska Constitutional Convention. |
Doug Colp | Placer mining engineer who was active in Alaska from the end of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush to the end of the 20th Century. One of Alaska’s top dredging experts. |
Donald Jean Cook | An Oregon-born graduate of the University of Alaska, who pursued a long career, both in mining and in education. |
James D. Crawford | A well organized manager who acquired new dredge properties and guided the FE company into a successful post-World War II period of gold mining. |
Roshier Creecy | Stampeded to Dawson, later settled and mined creeks near Wiseman in northern Alaska. |
Mattie Crosby | Spent nearly 50 years in the Iditarod mining district as a compassionate entrepreneur and prospector. |
Fredrick James Currier | One of those persistent early Yukon basin miners who was in the Circle and 40 Mile district’s just after their respective discoveries and explored the Chena River basin years before Felix Pedro’s’ arrival |
Jack Dalton | As one of the premier horse freighters of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush era, Jack Dalton opened up the Dalton Trail for prospectors and traders. |
James K. Davidson | Designed and built the Miocene and Davidson ditch systems. |
Wendell Dawson | Illinois born Wendell Dawson was educated as both a teacher and civil engineer but spent most of his life engaged in the mining industry as both mine operator and prospector in southeast Alaska. The civil engineer served in three wars: WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. The currently operating Dawson mine near Hollis is named in his honor. He is widely given credit for an important role in discovery of what became the Granduc copper-polymetallic mine in British Columbia |
Peter Petrovich Doroshin | Russian Mining Engineer who explored for minerals during the late Russian-American Period. Pioneered the geology of Alaskan coal resources. Returned to Russia and served with distinction in the Russian Mining industry. |
William C. Douglass | A mining engineer and an excellent manager and motivator of people who spent several years working at Kennecott, Alaska, leaving as General Superintendent of the Kennecott Copper Mine. |
Wesley E. Dunkle | An innovative Kennecott engineer and geologist, and the co-founder of Star Air Service, the predecessor to Alaska Airlines. |
Roy B. Earling | Built the pre-World War II FE Company into one of the most efficient and successful dredge mining firms in the world. |
Frederick (Fred) Eastaugh | Nome-born Frederick Eastaugh was an Alaskan accountant, a ship's officer for the Alaska Steamship Company, and a mining attorney who spent most of his professional career in southeast Alaska. |
William T. (BIll) Ellis | Born in the rural mining community of Grass Valley, California, Bill Ellis (1947-2022) obtained a BS in Geology in 1972 from the University of Nevada. Beginning in 1972, he arrived in Alaska as an exploration geologist in the Ambler Mineral belt. He would later explore for a wide variety of minerals, including critical minerals, throughout Alaska. From 1999 to 2021, he was an important mentor to younger geologists searching for mineral wealth throughout Alaska |
William T. Ewing | teamed up with Daniel McCarty, who owned the Discovery Claim on Fairbanks Creek, and made a fortune in gold. |
Herbert L. Faulkner | With a law career spanning almost seventy years, Faulkner represented almost every major mining company operating in Alaska during his lifetime. |
Glen DeForde Franklin | A gifted athlete who studied business administration at the University of Alaska in the 1930s, and placer mined with others in both Alaska and the Yukon Territory, Canada. |
Howard Franklin | A Fortymile country prospector who discovered the first "bedrock" placer gold in Alaska. |
Carl S. and Walter A. Glavinovich | A pair of brothers who, collectively, devoted more than 100 years of their lives to the prospecting, deciphering, drilling, thawing, and dredging of the Nome, Alaska placer gold fields. |
Lenhart J.H. Grothe | Len Grothe (1935-1970) obtained a B.S. Degree in mining engineering from the University of Alaska in 1959. He worked at the Red Devli mercury-antimony mine near Sleetmute and later purchased the Lost River tin mine. From 1965-1990, Grothe's firm, Lost River Mining Company, was the nations' largest source of the critical metal tin, all from placer deposits. In 2007, the University of Alaska established the 'Lenart J.H. Grothe Resource award' to be given to university alumnus who made contributions to the State's natural resource industries. |
Donald John Grybeck: | Played a key role in the establishment of the Alaska Resource Data File (ARDF) system. |
Wendell P. Hammon | Installed the first of three large bucketline stacker dredges in the Cape Nome district. |
Arthur Harper | A well known and respected trader, prospector and promoter of the Yukon. |
Richard Harris | An Irish immigrant who co-discovered gold in the Juneau district. |
Robert L. Hatcher | Began the lode mining boom in the Willow Creek mining district with his 1906 discovery of gold-quartz veins on Skyscraper Peak in the Talkeetna Mountains, which later became part of the Independence group of mines. |
Charles Caldwell Hawley | Born in Evansville, Indiana in 1929, Hawley was one of most respected and beloved individuals among Alaska’s mining fraternity; was noted for his leadership during the D-2 lands debates and a noted author of mining history. |
Charles "Chuck" Herbert | The premier Alaska miner of his generation. |
Orville G. Herning | Located placer claims on Willow Creek and joined with others to form the Willow Creek mining district. Later became a general store owner and important civic leader in Wasilla, Alaska. |
Luther and Harriet Hess | Luther was a first rate mining lawyer and an active mine developer in several interior Alaska gold camps. Harriet was a mining educator and the pioneer regent of the University of Alaska system. |
Phillip R. Holdsworth | Alaska's first Commissioner of Natural Resources. |
Walter W. Johnson | Established dredges on the Seward Peninsula starting in 1909, eventually placing 32 dredges in Alaska as well as others throughout the world. |
Evan Jones | A Welsh immigrant who became the father of Alaska coal mining. |
Joe Juneau | A Native of Quebec, a California 49er, and the co-discoverer of gold in the Juneau district. |
Tekla Kanari | A Finnish immagrant who helped form the Trinity Mining Company, one of the most successful small scale placer operations in the Kougarok District north of Nome. |
Kawa.ée | A Tlingit leader who brought George Pilz gold-rich rock samples from Gastineau Channel area. |
Kate Kennedy | climbed over Chilkoot Pass and ended up in McCarthy running boarding houses, kitchens, taxi companies, and practically any other business needed for the small isolated mining community for decades. |
Charles D. Lane | A tough, honest, and wealthy miner and lawyer who helped the 'Three Luck Swedes' in their legal battles. |
Erik Lindblom | The eldest of the 'Three Lucky Swedes' - a tailor. |
Emma Grace Low | Born in Seattle, Washington, Grace Lowe has the distinction of being one of the very few women that operated profitable gold mines in Alaska. |
Jafet Lindeberg | The Norwegian of the 'Three Lucky Swedes' - the president and manager of the very successful Pioneer Mining Company. |
Robert F. Lyman | An independent operator of small scale mercury lodes, but also the manager of Alaska's largest mercury mine at Red Devil on the Kuskokwim River. |
Edward M. MacKevett Jr. | A renowned economic geologist best known for his work at the Bokan Mountain Uranium-thorium-REE deposits in Southeast Alaska, the Red Devil mercury-antimony district in Southwest Alaska, and the Kennecott copper-silver deposits in the Wrangell Mountains. |
Frank G. Manley | A highly successful miner in the Fairbanks, Hot Springs, and Flat districts, and the founder of the First National Bank in Fairbanks. |
John F. Malony Sr. | participated in southeastern Alaska mineral rushes. He helped organize and later became the President of the Alaska Electric Light and Power Company. |
Merton H. Marston | A newspaper editor who joined the Alaska - Yukon Gold Rush and eventually became wealthy. |
Alfred Mayo | 'Captain Al' - a well-known Yukon River trader and prospector. |
Reuben (Fred) McClellan | Organized the mining partnership that made the initial discoveries and negotiated the sales of the mineral claims that became the Kennecott mines in Alaska. |
Cole Edwin McFarland | Rose from a remote placer mining camp in Alaska to being president of a large mining company. |
'Johnny' McGinn | A smart mining lawyer who, with James Wickersham, cleaned up corruption in Nome and financed many small gold and silver projects in interior Alaska and the Yukon Territory, Canada. |
Jack McQuesten | Known as the 'Father of the Yukon' - a grubstaker for prospectors |
Thomas Mein | was born into a Scottish tenant farm community. After Mein immigrated to the United States, he sought and found a fortune in gold during the California Gold Rush and later became instrumental in the establishment of large lode gold mines near |
John B. Mertie Jr. | A leading U.S. Geological Survey geologist and a world expert on platinum. |
Genevieve Parker Metcalfe | A breakthrough woman mining engineer who developed the initial plans for FE Company's Fairbanks operations, wrote a landmark thesis on Alaska placer mining, and was a champion athlete and scholar. |
John Minook | A Creole-Athabascan prospector who discovered the Rampart district. |
John Miscovich | Creative and practical water technology innovations, especially the Intelligiant. |
Peter Miscovich | A Croatian immigrant who settled in Flat, Alaska in 1910 and pioneered the use of hydraulic mining techniques. |
John Joseph Mulligan | Worked throughout Alaska investigating mineral wealth and managed projects related to ANILCA and ANCSA. |
Arnold Nordale | Played a role in the development of the Davidson Ditch, later a mayor of Fairbanks, and ending his career as general mananger of a large Canadian mining company. |
Andrew Olson | A Swedish immigrant, an innovator at Flat and a long-time miner of platinum. |
Edward Olson | A placer gold miner in Iditarod district, then the general manager of The Goodnews Bay Mining Company |
Patrick Henry O'Neill | An Alaskan dredge engineer and operator who later took his skills to Central and South America |
Lars Ostnes | A Norwegian immigrant who mined in the Iditarod district and developed placer mines in remote western Alaska for over 50 years. |
Carl Gordon Parker | Carl was active in the local Fairbanks mining community serving in several capacities. |
Earnest Patty | A professor at, and later president of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the manager of a placer dredging venture. |
Felix Pedro | Discovered the Fairbanks district in 1902. |
Earl R. Pilgrim | Built the pre-World War II FE Company into one of the most efficient and successful dredge mining firms in the world. |
George Pilz | A German immigrant who sent Juneau and Harris into the Juneau area to prospect. |
Thomas L. Pittman | Worked for the USBM in SE Alaska, collecting and archiving mineral data. |
Chester W. Purington | An acclaimed international mining engineer who wrote a treatise on Alaska placer fields. |
Fannie Quigley | A prospector renowned for her bush skills and a legendary Kantishna character. |
Joseph Quigley | Ascended Chilkoot Pass in 1891, prospected and mined on numerous creeks before establishing himself in the Kantishna Hills in 1905, where he spent most of his mining career. |
Martin Radovan | A Croatian prospector who prospected the Chitina Valley for decades and found the high altitude Binocular copper prospect. He never made a mine, but his dreams live on. |
Donald Rae | A Canadian-born miner, prospector, assayer and mine promoter who worked throughout the West, including Arizona, Oregon, Montana, Nevada and ultimately Alaska. |
Irving M. Reed | A Territorial Mining Engineer, the Chair of the Alaska Game Commission where he was instrumental in introducing musk oxen, bison and elk to different parts of Alaska, elected as Territorial Highway Engineer, and a fighter for Alaska statehood. |
Walter Roman | Over his many years in the North, Walter Roman was a resident of Juneau, Bird Creek, Circle City, Seward, Circle Hot Springs, Miller House, and Fairbanks. The shy, soft-spoken gentleman was well known to the Interior Alaska mining community for more than 60 years for outstanding skills using hydraulic technologies to remove overburden and mine gold. |
Toivo Rosander | Involved in placer mining for nearly 70 years and influential in the contentious D-2 lands debate on behalf of placer mining |
Joseph Rudd | Shortly after Statehood, Rudd drafted the State's mining law on State lands, and was highly sought for his expertise on Natural Resource issues throughout his career. He was killed in a plane crash while returning from a trip to Juneau. |
Russell Schaefer | One of Alaska's 'tough guy' prospectors who accomplished much in the Kuskokwim Mercury Belt of southwest Alaska. |
John Qipqina Schaeffer Jr. | The Inupiat leader from Kotzebue that led the complex political process resulting in the development of the Red Dog mine, today one of the world’s largest producers of the critical metal zinc. |
William Seagrave | A hands-on manager that oversaw the operations of the Kennecott Copper Corporation mines in Prince William Sound and in the Wrangell Mountains. After Seagrave left the company in 1916, he continued work at the Chichagoff mines near Sitka, before passing away in 1929. |
Arthur A. Shonbeck | He joined numerous mining stampedes during the Alaska-Yukon gold rush, and became an outstanding business leader in Anchorage, Alaska, where he helped found Providence Hospital. He drowned in Ganes Creek, west of McGrath, Alaska, while on a trip with AMHF inductee John Beaton, the man who discovered Iditarod. |
Raymond Smith | Started in Alaska gold fields, studied mining engineering, and eventually became president of Michigan Technological University. |
Walter Smith Henry Wuya |
Co-discovered platinum in the Goodnews Bay District. |
Arthur C. Spencer | Provided the first geologic descriptions of the Kennecott Mines in the Chitina Valley and authored a classic: USGS Bulletin 287—The Juneau Gold Belt in 1906. |
Josiah E. Spurr | Forged a career as a renowned economic geologist—and helped found the Society of Economic Geologists. Best known for his pre-Klondike adventure—Through the Yukon Gold Diggings. |
Earl T. Stannard | A mining engineer who designed innovative new ore recovery equipment and became the CEO of the Kennecott Copper Corporation. |
Wise Mike Stepovich | Self-educated prospector and miner from Montenegro (Yugoslavia) that mined placer and lode gold and tungsten in the Fairbanks Mining District. Patriarch of the Stepovich family in Alaska |
Benjamin D. Stewart | A State and Federal mining administrator and an Alaska constitutional delegate. |
Norman C. Stines | Planned and supervised USSR&M activities in the Fairbanks district. |
Walter W. Stoll | Became the general manager for Alaska Pacific Mines, Inc., operator of the Independence Gold Mine, which became the largest gold producer (in ore tonnage) in the Willow Creek mining district. |
David Strandberg | A Swedish immigrant who joined the Klondike gold rush in 1898 and the Iditarod rush of 1910. Built the placer mining dynasty Strandberg & Sons, Inc. |
William Sulzer | Bill Sulzer became a prominent New York attorney and politician, and briefly served as Governor of New York. The ever optimistic Sulzer mined copper in southeast Alaska and developed gold in the Chandalar district. |
Eugene Swanson | was reported to be the only consistently successful miner in the Rampart Mining District. |
Irv Tailleur | Responsible for the geological work that led to the development of one of the world's largest zinc deposits, The Red Dog Mine in northwest Alaska. |
Bartlett Thane | The founder and promoter of the world's largest gold mine, the Gastineau at Juneau. |
Herman Tofty | A Norwegian immigrant who worked prospects near Manley Hot Springs. |
John Treadwell | Founder of the Treadwell Mines, Juneau. |
Nicholas B. and Evinda S. Tweet | A husband and wife team that created a remarkably stable, family-owned company which mined gold in Alaska for 110 years. |
Oscar Tweiten | He arrived in Fairbanks during the Great Depression, and mined on Cleary Creek in the Fairbanks district for more than 50 years. |
John Gustavus (Gus ) Uotila | By 1915, Gus Uotila was known as a tough Iditarod teamster. He mentored placer mining operations throughout Alaska, and became a respected overland freighter. |
Emil Usibelli | Founder of the Usibelli Coal Mine, Inc., and a civic benefactor in Fairbanks. |
Joseph Emil Usibelli | Born in the coal mining town of Healy, Joe Usibelli (1938-2022) earned an engineering degree at the University of Alaska in 1959. After losing his father to a mine accident, Joe took over operations of Usibelli Coal mine and is credited with streamlining production, upgrading equipment, and reclaiming mined lands years before it was required. Joe gave generously to the University of Alaska and community of Fairbanks. In 2022, the School of Engineering and Mines building was named the Joseph E. Usibelli Engineering, Learning, and Innovation Building in his honor |
Helen Van Campen | Creative adventurer first came north during the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush and became well known in journalism, equestrian sports, and mining. A Memorial Scholarship in Journalism at the University of Alaska bears her name. |
Livingston Wernecke | A geologist-engineer for the Bradley companies of Juneau. |
Simon Wible | He mined gold, built water canals, and became a wealthy man in California. When the gold rush began, he pioneered hydraulic mine technology on the Kenai Peninsula. |
Ernest N. Wolff | Public servant, and professor and administrator at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. |
Kyosuke (Frank) Yasuda and Nevelo Yasuda | A Japanese immigrant and his Eskimo wife, who discovered gold at Chandalar and later founded the community of Beaver. |