George Max Esterly Alaska gold rush papers, 1898-1929.

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George Max Esterly Alaska gold rush papers, 1898-1929.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/702164918

Photograph album documenting George Esterly's Alaska gold rush experience, accompanied by related correspondence, writings, and clippings, and typescript biographies of his father and grandfather. The album contains 185 photographs taken on the way to Alaska, on the trail, and in Wrangell, Skagway and Dawson. The photographs are accompanied by typescript descriptions taken apparently from letters written home to his family, and one newspaper clipping of a printed letter by Esterly describing Alaska. There are snapshots of gold miners on ships, in camps, playing shell games, wandering the streets of Skagway and Dawson, and on the trail. Also depicted are Esterly's Dawson City Electric Light and Water Power Company, women in the towns, "Indian murderers," the "Newman Opera Co.," snowstorms, and the interior of Esterly's cabin. One photograph is by photographer E. A. Hegg. The album is accompanied by a typescript "Narrative of the Expedition, 1904," written by an unidentified person who refers to Esterly as an entrepreneur; a letter written by Fenton Blakemore Whiting, reminiscing about the gold rush and con man Jefferson R. (Soapy) Smith; a letter written by Esterly to Whiting; three clippings; typescript poems about the gold rush; an advertising silk for an entertainment at Dawson; and two sets of typescript autobiographies by Esterly's father and grandfather, describing early days in Wisconsin, and his grandfather's farm machinery inventions.

1.0 linear ft. (2 boxes)

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8022064

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Related Entities

There are 6 Entities related to this resource.

Smith, Jefferson Randolph, 1860-1898

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zg70ft (person)

Esterly, George Max.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gf358f (person)

George Max Esterly of Wisconsin was an entrepreneur who travelled to Alaska during the 1898 Alaska gold rush. His grandfather George Esterly, moved to Wisconsin in 1836 and was a farm machine inventor. His father George W. Esterly served as Deputy Auditor to the Treasury Department from 1896 to 1910. From the description of George Max Esterly Alaska gold rush papers, 1898-1929. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702164918 From the description of George Max Esterly Alaska gold ru...

Esterly, George, b. 1809.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6x08kh0 (person)

Esterly, George W., d. 1914.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65f135q (person)

Hegg, Eric A., 1867-1948

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ks7d13 (person)

Eric A. Hegg was born in Bollnas, Sweden, in 1868 and came to America with his parents when he was three years old, settling in Wisconsin. Hegg studied art and photography (possibly as an apprentice to a local photographer). At fifteen, he opened his own studio in Washburn, Wisconsin. At the age of twenty-one, Hegg moved to the Puget Sound area, and by 1897, he owned two photo studios in Bellingham Bay, Washington. In that year, he left for the gold fields with a group of men from Bellingham Bay...

Whiting, Fenton Blakemore, 1866-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rj6tc9 (person)

Doctor who went to Skagway in 1898. From the description of Letter from Fenton B. Whiting in Seattle to Georgie, 1929 July 27. (Alaska State Library). WorldCat record id: 42067031 ...