Treadwell gold mine trade who had come to Alaska prior to the Klondike Gold Rush. In 1880, prospectors Joseph 'Joe' Juneau and Richard Harris discovered gold in Silver Bow Basin. This brought waves of prospectors to the region, including John Treadwell, whose first move was to purchase a lode claim on Douglas Island from Pierre Joseph Erussard ("French Pete") on 13 Sept. 1881. Treadwell formed a partnership in Sept. 1881 with Erussard de Ville, D.P. Mitchell and Dave Martin under the name of The San Francisco Company. For unknown reasons he later backed out of this, and in early December 1881 he devoted
Gold mining in Alaska Richard Harris the presence of gold in what is now named Gold Creek in Silver Bow Basin. The city of Juneau was founded there that year. The strike sparked the Juneau gold rush which resulted in the development of many placer and lode mines including the largest, in their time, gold mines in the world: the Treadwell complex of lode mines on Douglas Island (across a narrow sea channel from Juneau) and the AJ lode mine, in Juneau itself. Over 7 million ounces of lode gold and of placer gold have been recovered from the Juneau district. Most of the