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Hope, Alaska: Gold Rush Cities
 t
seems hard to believe now, but the rustic little towns of
Hope and Sunrise, on the south side of Turnagain Arm, were
booming "cities" a century ago during the Turnagain
Arm Gold Rush. A serious rush began in 1896, after $40,000
was pulled from 6-mile Creek. This brought 3,000 prospectors
to the Cook Inlet Region. Although one Hope area miner got
almost 400 ounces in a single summer from Resurrection Creek
in 1897, that was also the year the Klondike Gold Rush began.
Ever fickle, miners cleared out of Sunrise for the Yukon,
leaving only 150 people behind. But in 1898, 10,000 new
miners, afraid that Dawson was too tricky to mine, opted
for Turnagain Arm and showed up, en masse. Over a million
dollars were taken from the ground here by 1906. Now, 200
people live in this area, and Hope is a well-preserved Gold
Rush town. One of the most important survivals from the
Gold Rush era is 72 miles of hiking trail connecting Hope
to Seward. The original trail was used by gold miners traveling
north a century ago. |
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