Gold mining in Alaska Juneau, and Nome are responsible for most of Alaska's historical and all current gold production. Nearly all of the large and many of the small placer gold mines currently operating in the US are in Alaska. Six modern large-scale hard rock mines operate in Alaska in 2008; four of those are gold-producing mines (an additional gold mine suspended production in late 2007). There are also some small-scale hard rock gold-mining operations. Alaska currently produces more gold (in 2015: 873,984 troy oz from hard rock mines, and 74,360 troy oz (five-year average) from placer deposits) than any state except Nevada. In
Denise Juneau the final vote tally was 234,483 for Juneau (51%), 201,091 (43.7%) for her GOP opponent, Elaine Sollie Herman, and 24,236 (5.3%) for Libertarian candidate Donald Eisenmenger. She was the first American Indian woman to win a statewide office. In 2012, Juneau ran for re-election against Republican Sandy Welch. Juneau was narrowly re-elected, receiving 235,397 votes to Welch's 233,166 votes. Due to term limits, Juneau was ineligible to run again in 2016. Juneau was named as a possible candidate for US Senator Max Baucus's (D-Montana) seat, which was vacated upon his retirement in 2014. On August 5, 2013, she announced that