Wendell Dawson
(1896-1965)
from High School Graduation.
Photo Credit: Dawson Family Files.
Wendell Dawson’s favorite quote (1) was from a prominent geological engineer, Franc R. Joubin:
“Mining is an industry, but mine exploration is a romantic adventure.”
This is the story of Wendell Dawson’s romantic adventures with mineral exploration. Wendell Dawson was born on January 22, 1896 in La Harpe, Illinois, the son of Mary Ann Finch and Lemoine Painter Dawson. His family started migrating west in 1907, spending a few years in Estelline, South Dakota, before settling in 1910 near Idaho Falls, Idaho, where he graduated from high school in 1914. He became a local schoolteacher, but by 1916 he was beginning his lifelong passion of prospecting and mining (2,3).
The first known mention of Dawson being a miner was in a sensational July 1916 news storypicked up by several papers detailing his heroic efforts to walk 60 miles over the wild interior of Idaho in order to enlist in the U.S. Army as World War I escalated.
“Wendell Dawson is a young miner 21 years of age, former resident of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and La Harpe, Illinois. For the past few years, he has been placer mining along Loon Creek remote from civilization and transportation facilities” (4).
He served along the Mexican border before returning to Idaho where he had met fellow teacher, Naomi Christensen, a native of Utah, at a local business college. They married in 1917, then moved to Washington, D.C., as war workers before he was sent to Europe in 1918 as part of the U.S. Army Balloon Corps and served overseas until 1919. He returned home to Salt Lake City, where he resumed his studies to become a civil engineer. Wendell and Naomi moved to Portland, Oregon, where he began working as an engineer for the U.S. Geological Survey. In August 1920, they had a daughter, Dayle, but Naomi sadly passed away seven months later (2).
In June 1924, he was selected by the U.S. Geological Survey to examine the U.S. Forest Service’s project of surveying Alaska’s hydro power potential. He was stationed in Juneau for the summer, his first foray into Alaska (5).
In 1925, he married his second wife, Edna Munz. The family lived in Portland, Oregon, where they welcomed a son Edward in 1926. By 1929, the family was living in Ketchikan where their daughter Theresia was born in 1929 (2).
In 1930, The Kasaan Mining Company leased the Handy claims to Wendell Dawson on Prince of Wales Island, near Hollis. Dawson shifted the mining about a half-mile north of the Harris River Mine to what is now called the Dawson Mine. Dawson mined here intermittently starting in 1931 until 1952. Gold was the primary metal mined, along with silver, lead, and copper (10).
His first major prospecting trip was in July 1931 when he and partner William Fromholz of Juneau hiked into the Leduc River valley. After motoring a boat from Ketchikan to the Chickamin River before merging onto the Leduc River, they were within 15 miles of the International Boundary. They then hiked within two miles of the boundary, where they set up a base camp for the summer. They discovered a large copper deposit near the Leduc Glacier and staked several claims in September 1931. When they returned, Wendell wrote an extensive report to the Alaska Territory’s supervising mining engineer, AMHF inductee B.D. Stewart (6, 7, 8).
In 1933, Dawson, owner of the Harris Creek/Dawson Mine, hired Kelly Adams and Jim Locke, two young native Washingtonians trying their luck in mining gold in Alaska for the first time, to clean the tailings of the Old Kasaan gold mine. In ten days, Adams and his partner removed 1,100 wheelbarrows of sand and gravel from the stream and retrieved $1,100 in gold (~$32/oz.). That endeavor was so successful, he had the pair clean up the yard around the mill, retrieving almost an additional $700 in gold. Then, he had them pull up the planks in the old mill and go through the dirt below the mill, garnering almost another $1,000 in gold. For their efforts, Adams and Locke had negotiated being paid $1.50 a day and room and board. At the end of the two months of work, Dawson surprised the men by paying them $2.00 a day for $300 each, a large sum in the depths of the Great Depression where some workers in Civilian Conservation Corps. camps earned $300 in a whole year. (23)
Kelly Adams became his son-in-law in 1938 when his daughter Dayle got married. Despite her marriage’s failure to Kelly Adams in 1951, Wendell and Kelly remained lifelong prospecting partners and friends (2, 9).
By 1938, $22,000 in gold, at about $35 per ounce, had been produced at the Dawson Mine since 1933, according to an Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Examination Report. Between 1931 to 1952, the Dawson Mine is estimated to have produced nearly 10,000 ounces of gold, 7,000 ounces of silver, along with minor amounts of lead and copper (10).
By 1940, Wendell’s marriage to Edna Munz had ended and he married his third wife, Coral Zundel, of Utah, in Ketchikan. Coral’s sister, Ruby Boedeker, visited the Dawson Mine in 1941 at the invitation of Coral and husband Wendell Dawson, who had hired Ruby’s husband Bill to help with the mine. Besides having a few close run-ins with aggressive black bears, one of which literally killed a deer within a few feet of her, Ruby described the layout of the Dawson Mine in an article in the November 1941 edition of the Alaska Sportsman titled ‘We Have Everything’
“the Dawson camp was a pleasant surprise. It turned out to be a big, six-room log building, painted dark red, with a green shingled roof. Then there was a general storeroom, a dry house, a meat house and a coal house. A thirty foot yard of sand had been piped down from the mine surrounded by buildings--to hold back the green jungle….From the camp, it was a three-thousand foot hike up the side of the mountain, to an elevation of five hundred feet. Wendell had built a stairway made of split logs for half the entire distance from the camp to the mine” (11).
Wendell Dawson at his Dawson mine, circa 1941;
from Boedeker (1941).
Both Ruby and her husband Bill got a serious case of gold fever and began to scheme about how they could have their own gold mine. At the encouragement of Wendell Dawson, they prospected an area 3 miles northwest of Hollis, where gold-bearing quartz veins were found. They staked two federal mining claims and began to plan. Ruby relates:
“We’ll clear a place for a cabin. We’ll have a tumbling stream at our front door and the beautiful mountains around us. We’ll have our home and our children, our health and our freedom. And when we add up the things acquired here, then ’We’ll Have Everything’! (11).”
Dawson worked summers on his mine, but was ordered to closed it down in on December 7, 1942, one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the War Production Board issued L-208, an order closing of all gold mines in the country. The order bankrupted him. Soon after, when he was called to active duty for the U.S. Naval Reserve as part of the Civil Engineer Corps. Construction Battalion. He served as an officer in charge of a Seabees company building airplane runways in the South Pacific near New Caledonia, the Hebrides, Guadalcanal, and Okinawa. He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander by the end of the war. (2, 12, 22)
After WWII ended, Dawson reopened the Dawson Mine producing a small amount in gold in 1946. He began operations again in March 1947, and by early August 1947 had milled 49 ¾-ton cars, averaging about three to four cars of ore a day, at about $30 per ton (13). In 1947, Associate Mining Engineer for the Hyder and Ketchikan Mining Precincts J. C. Roehm noted in a report:
In 1947, Associate Mining Engineer for the Hyder and Ketchikan Mining Precincts J. C. Roehm noted in a report:
“Dawson operates this mine alone and considerable credit is due for his development of the existing ore-body. Indications are that this ore-body contains a reserve many times greater than the present capacity of the mill. Dawson also probably holds the distinction of operating the only producing gold lode mine in Alaska at the present time without the aid of labor. He has been working alone for the last two seasons” (13).
In an April 2, 1948 letter B. D. Stewart, Commissioner of Mines for the Territory of Alaska Department of Mines, wrote a glowing appraisal of Dawson:
“My acquaintanceship with Mr. Dawson extends back over a period of many years. It began when he was given a responsible assignment as engineer in charge of important water-power investigations in the Juneau district that were undertaken on behalf of San Francisco industrialists who contemplated establishing large paper mills in this vicinity. During that assignment he became interested in the field of mining in southeastern Alaska, to which he has since devoted his attention, particularly, in the Harris River section of Prince of Wales Island in the Ketchikan mining precinct. During his residence in Alaska Mr. Dawson has built up a fine reputation as an intelligent and dependable person and respected citizen. Mr. Dawson’s efforts to develop virtually single-handed and without outside support the mining property at Harris Creek on which he has worked for many years have been regarded with admiration by those familiar with the project.” (24)
In 1949, an investigative report dated May 25 by Howard M. Fowler noted:
“Visited Dawson Mine on Harris River. Dawson has milled approximately 125 cars of ore. Expects to mill about 300 cars for the season (14)”
Dawson ceased underground mining at the Dawson Mine in 1950 after shipping 28,540 pounds of concentrates to the Tacoma Smelter during the winter of 1949-1950 (14, 20). In 2023, current mine superintendent of the Dawson Mine, Jared Fithian, took Paystreak editor Tom Bundtzen through some of Wendell Dawson’s old workings at the Dawson Mine.
In 2023, Sundance Chief Mining Superintendent Jared Fithian examines gold-bearing quartz-sulfide vein system (to his left) at the face Wendell Dawson worked during late 1940s Photo Credit: Tom Bundtzen files
Haulage way (on rails), old Dawson workings as seen in 2023; with rusted-out equipment. Photo Credit: Tom Bundtzen files
By 1951, he was called up to active duty again—for the third time--this time for the Korean War. He served in the Marshall Islands. While serving, his wife Coral left him and filed for divorce (2, 12).
Upon his return to the U.S. in 1952, he was stationed in Seattle, Washington, at U.S. Naval Air Station Sandpoint, where he was assigned to ‘Ready Reserve’. From 1952 until 1962, he maintained assessment work on the Dawson Mine/Harris Creek claims until he leased them to Bill Boedeker in the fall of 1962 (12, 20).
In February 1953, he learned that his 1931 discovery of a massive copper deposit near the Leduc Glacier in B.C. was garnering major interest from a large mining company, Granby Mining and Smelting. He quickly organized a small group of men, including Howard Fowler, the former Alaska Government mining engineer, to go with him to restake his claims he’d let lapse in the 1930s. A major storm developed, allowing the men to access the area and stake 72 claims that would be named “Dawson Copper, Skeena Mining Division” before the competition could get into the area. That area would become the Granduc Mine in the 1960s. It was one of Wendell Dawson’s most profitable mining venture (15, 16, 17).
Sno-CatTM all-terrain vehicle used in the prospecting of the Granduc area, Canada during 1953, with Wendell Dawson on the far right. Photo Credit: Dawson family files.
In May 1953, Wendell developed Tuberculosis and was shipped to a Naval hospital in San Diego, California, where he was treated until finally cleared for medical retirement in October 1953 (12).
In February 1954, Wendell married his 4th wife Grace Gilkey, a high school home economics teacher from Sumner, Washington. They moved to Kirkland, Washington, in 1955, naming their home, “Dawson’s Diggin’s”. She was an avid supporter of his mining adventures for the remainder of his life (15).
Throughout the early 1960s, he sent in corrections to various publications including Mining World that erroneously gave sole discovery credit to Don Ross for the uranium discovery on Bokan Mountain instead of also including his former son-in-law Kelly Adams, and for the discovery and for the sale of copper-molybdenum claims along the Alaskan side of the Unuk River when he, Dawson, should have been noted as a co-discoverer. He even continued to mention co-discovery credit of the area that became the Granduc Mine to William Fromholz, even though he’d passed away years earlier. As he wrote to the Mining World, “Proper credit for work done is dear to the heart of a true prospector, and it is hoped that at the proper time and place such credit will be given.” (20)
In The Northern Miner’s March 5, 1964 story, “Value of Prospector Well-Documented in Postwar Years”, Dawson’s Granduc discovery was mentioned:
“It must be emphasized that in situations of this kind, no one party can take claim to all the glory for bringing in a mine, nor in being entirely responsible [for] the exploration thinking that lead to the making [of a] mine. An excellent case in point is that of Granduc Mines, a major situation in Northern B.C. Quite popularly, the Karl Springer-sponsored Helicopter Exploration outfit is credited with making the Granduc discoveries, but in actual fact, one individual is actually known to be responsible. He is Mr. Wendell Dawson, of Kirkland, Washington, who flew into the Granduc region in the early 1930’s (and in doing so, demonstrated the value of the airplane in exploring remote and difficult country in B.C.). Mr. Dawson’s subsequent knowledge and interest in the area eventually led to the Springer organization and many other people moving into the country, with Granduc Mines the subsequent result” (18).
In Dawson’s last years, his primary area of prospecting focus was on rare earth element claims he held between Luning and Mina, Nevada. While prospecting, he suffered a heart attack on May 13, 1965, but was able to drive himself to the hospital in Hawthorne. A day after his wife Grace arrived, he suffered a massive heart attack and died on May 19, 1965, at the age of 69. He was buried at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Bellevue, Washington. At the time of his passing, he was survived by his wife Grace and three children; and later, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren (15, 18).
Wendell Dawson in Kirkland, Washington, circa 1960. Photo Credit: Dawson Family Files.
Even after his death, his contributions to mining in Alaska were noted. A 1995 report by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, “Mineral investigations in the Ketchikan mining district, southeastern Alaska” noted, “The largest past mineral producers in the Hollis area were the Harris River and Dawson Mines.” (20).
Today, Wendell Dawson’s legacy lives on in the operations of the Dawson Mine, now (2024) in it’s fifth year of commercial operations. The Dawson Mine is owned and operated by the Sundance Mining Group (SMG). SMG operates year-round with a crew of about 50. A 125-ton-per-day mill is fed from several underground faces. The gravity-only facility recovers both fine gold from tables as well as from shipments of sulfide concentrates shipped to a facility in Germany.
The Dawson mine has provided a significant economic impact to the community of Hollis as well as to the overall residents of Prince of Wales Island—something that Wendell Dawson would have appreciated.
Miners working underground at the Dawson Mine, circa 2022, with ore zone in background. Photo Credit: Sundance Mining Group.
By Shannon Watts Michael, 2024; Reviewed, With Minor Additions provided by Tom Bundtzen
References Used in this Biography
1. George Cross Newsletter, “Ore Search – As defined by Dr. Franc R. Joubin”, November 7, 1956.
2. Memoirs and Kin to Me, Written during the winter of 1947-1948, by Mary Finch Dawson.
3. 1914 City Directory, Idaho Falls, Idaho.
4. The Daily Gate City and Constitution-Democrat, Keokuk, Iowa, July 5, 1916, p. 5, col. 2.
5. Juneau Empire, Juneau, Alaska, Friday, April 4, 1924, p. 8.
6. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Fairbanks, Alaska, July 29 and 31, 1931, p. 1.
7. Affidavit for Full-sized Claim, Province of British Columbia, Department of Mines, Portland Canal Mining Division, Edna May, New Alaska, and Mineral Lode claims, October 19, 1931.
8. Letter Report from Wendell Dawson to B.D. Stewart, Alaska Territory Supervising Mining Engineer, November 30, 1931.
9. Southeastern Log, Volume 7, Number 11, by Bob Speed, “Adams among the lucky few,” November 1977, p. 14.
10. Alaska Resource Data File, U.S.G.S., March 4, 2008. https://mrdata.usgs.gov/ardf/show-ardf.php?ardf_num=CR099
11. Boedeker, Ruby Zundell, 1941, We Have Everything!: The Alaska Sportsman, November, 1941, pages 11-13; 28-30.
12. United States Naval Reserve Service Records, Wendell Dawson, 1942-1958.
13. Roehm, J.C., 1947, Report of investigations of J.C. Roehm in the Hyder and Ketchikan mining precincts, Alaska: Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Itinerary Report 195-43, 14 p., https://doi.org/10.14509/585
14. Fowler, Howard M., 1949, Report of Investigations, Alaska Territorial Department of Mines Itinerary Report 195-03, 5 p., https://dggs.alaska.gov/webpubs/dggs/ir/text/ir195_03.pdf.
15. Genealogical information inherited by Sandra Adams Watts and Shannon Watts Michael.
16. The Daily Colonist, Victoria, B.C., “City Surveyor Safely Home After Ordeal Atop Glacier”, by Harry Young, Tuesday, March 3, 1953, pg. 1.
17. Engineering and Mining Journal, Vol. 154, No. 4, April 1953, pg. unknown.
18. FindaGrave Memorial, Wendell Dawson, 1896-1965, 9. The Northern Miner, March 5, 1964, “Value of Prospector Well-Documented in Postwar Years”, March 5, 1964, Section 2, p. 1, 21.
19. The Northern Miner, March 5, 1964, “Value of Prospector Well-Documented in Postwar Years”, March 5, 1964, Section 2, p. 1, 21.
20. Personal mining records of Wendell Dawson, inherited by Shannon Watts Michael.
21. Maas, K.M., Bittenbender, P.E., and Still, J.C., 1995, Mineral investigations in the Ketchikan mining district, southeastern Alaska: U.S. Bureau of Mines Open-File Report 11-95, 606 p., p. 80, https://dggs.alaska.gov/webpubs/usbm/ofr/text/ofr011_95.pdf
22. Letter from Wendell Dawson to unknown associate named Bob, March 15, 1962.
23. The Big Hurrah – Stories Told by Kelly Adams, recorded and transcribed by Martha Adams Cohn, 1981, pg. 45-46.
24. Letter from B. D. Stewart to Mr. F. H. Behling, cc’d to Wendell Dawson, April 2, 1948.