Ed Gelvin

The Circle District Historical Society is saddened to inform the membership of the death of Ed Gelvin, one of the “guiding lights” of the society. Ed was the second president of C.D.H.S. succeeding Pat Oakes. Along with Frank Warren he was responsible for supervising the construction of the Museum Gallery. Ed also designed both of the Circle District Museum gold displays, collecting gold from miners on the various creeks, donating gold from Greenhorn Creek and purchasing and donating gold where necessary for the original display.The Gelvin family has also donated many other items to the museum.The Society extends its condolences to his family. Ed’s Obituary is reprinted below.

 

Edwin C. Gelvin

Edwin Clarence Gelvin, 76 of Central died Sept. 9, 2000 at Providence Hospital in Anchorage.

He was born in 1924 at Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, the son of Stanley Victor Gelvin and Pauline Blue Gelvin.

During World War II Ed served in the U.S. Navy as a ship fitter on destroyer escorts in the south Atlantic.

Ed and his wife came to Alaska in 1949 and lived in Fairbanks for six years before settling in Central where he resided for 45 years. He worked as an ironworker and welder out of Local Union 751, helping to build many bridges, oil rigs, DEW line towers, village schools and other buildings around Alaska. He was a pilot for 32 years, a big game guide for many of those years, and loved to hunt, fish and trap.

Ed loved animals and always had dogs. After retiring from the union in 1979, Ed successfully mined for gold in the creeks around Central with his family. In 1990, he began rebuilding antique airplanes and finished a 1929 Curtiss Robin of which he was very proud. He frequently flew his planes to national air shows as far away as Wisconsin and Florida. Recently, he finished rebuilding a 1942 Stearman and flew it a week before his illness.

Ed was known for his many talents, especially for his craftsmanship and problem solving. He approached projects with enthusiasm and joy, and will be remembered for his soft-spoken ways and his willingness to lend a hand.

The author John McPhee wrote of Ed’s unique personal qualities in the book “Coming into the Country.”
Ed was a life member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Nation Rifle Association, Alaska Trappers Association, and a member of the Pioneers of Alaska and Experimental Aircraft Association. He was a Past president of the Circle District Historical Society.

Ed is survived by his wife Virginia; son Stanley; daughter Betsy and twin daughters Colleen and Carol. He has seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Ed was one of eight children, and is survived by his twin brother Earl of Washington, and his sisters Mary Perry of Arizona, Norma of Florida, Lois Murphy of Ohio, and Ester Brooks of Pennsylvania.

According to Ed’s wishes, his ashes will be spread by air in the eastern Brooks Range.

Memorial donations may be made to the Circle District Museum in Central or the Experimental Aircraft Association in Fairbanks.

 

Annual Meeting

The annual meeting of the Circle District Historical Society will be held at 8:00 a.m. Sunday July 1, 2001. Seats D, E, and F currently held by Lori Wilde, Julie Cooper, and Becky Hendrickson will be filled this year. The 2000 annual meeting was held on July 17, 2000. The members whose terms were up for election were reelected. Current board members are President George Hiller, Vice-president Al Cook, Secretary Lori Wilde, Treasurer Joyce Stockbridge, Jane Williams, Julie Cooper, and Becky Hendrickson.

 

Miner’s Picnic

The annual Circle Mining District Miner’s Picnic will be held on Saturday August 4, 2001, on the Museum grounds. For entertainment there will be children’s games with prizes, volleyball, an equipment rodeo, door prizes and an auction. Last year C.D.H.S. raised $1700 in conjunction with this event.

 

Bazaar

Last year’s Bazaar brought in $122 for the Society. This was obtained from the grab bags, the bake sale, and table space rentals. Bead work, quilted items, fur and leather crafts, scrimshaw, wood crafts, and homemade candies and jellies were on sale. This year’s Bazaar will be held on Saturday, November 24, 2001, from 10:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M. Once again, donations are needed for the grab bags. To donate, contact the museum at (907) 520-1893 or mail your items to C.D.H.S. Inc., Attn. Lori, P.O. Box 30189, Central, AK 99730.

 

Dues Raised

After keeping our dues structure the same for the last 20 years, in April the C.D.H.S. Board voted to raise the individual dues to $10 per year and the Family Dues to $15 per year. Business, sustaining and youth memberships will remain at current levels and Old timer memberships continue to be free. Rising utility costs, dropping revenues from fund raisers and a decrease in tourist activity prompted this measure.

 

From the Archivist
By Jane Williams

We are constantly looking for and accepting archival articles that have a bearing on our pioneering and mining past. Usually, and article is considered archival if it is a least fifty years old. With the article, we need the history of the article: people, time period, places, and uses. We also are constantly developing future exhibits. In mind, right now is an exhibit of children's toys that have been used in the past. If any of our friends have anything to donate to help us build up our exhibits we would be most grateful.

Jane Williams will continue to be the archivist for only this summer and next summer. At the present time the acquisition files and the horizontal files need a complete reorganization. Much that is in the outdoors exhibit area and the cold storage shed has been moved around so much that a master file and a place file must be implemented. What we face here is a lack of time and personnel. Perhaps it is time to think of a grant that will hire a professional archivist

We have just received from JoAnne and Ernie Wolff a few copies of the booklet “Yashuda”. There is no one alive today, with the exception of Ernie Wolff, who knew Yashuda, the Japanese Moses, who led a group of Eskimos into an area on the Yukon River called Beaver. The booklet is on sale at our Museum Sales Shop.

Also our library has received over 20 books and pamphlets from the Lois Meier Alaskana Collection. Lois and Pat Oakes taught together at Lathrop High School and were good friends. Many of the books are signed by the authors, and many are first editions. Lois Meier died last fall at the Pioneer Home.

The library needs a volunteer or two to organize and index our holdings. Just two hours in the afternoon Monday through Friday would help.

 

E.T. Barnette and the “Arctic Boy”

E.T. Barnette had an idea. J.J. Healy of the North American Trading and Transportation Company was planning to build a railroad from the ocean to the Alaskan Interior. The railroad would cross the Tanana River at Tanana Crossing (Tanacross) and E.T. planned to be there with the goods, trade goods. He planned to open a trading post at Tanana Crossing. One problem! How would he get the trade goods up the Tanana River since the Bates Rapids just above the Chena River blocked the normal steamboats from passing upstream? Barnett needed a low-draught steamship capable of ascending the Tanana through Bates Rapids.

In 1896, Josiah Edward Spurr and his U.S.G.S. party were hiking out to the Birch Creek mines. They hiked from Circle City to Twelve Mile House on Birch Creek and then up Birch Creek to the last place affording a decent hike to the mines. This place was known as the “Jumpoff”. Two men were building a roadhouse when Spurr passed through. As a supply point, this roadhouse would be 27 miles closer to the mines than Circle City and as a business should be profitable provided that the roadhouse could be supplied by water using a low-draught steamship capable of crossing the three-foot bar at the mouth of Birch Creek. One can venture to guess how successful this business turned out to be. By the summer of 1900 the steamer, Arctic Boy was for sale.

Enter Charles Smith the agent for the Alaska Commercial Co. in Circle City and Barnett’s partner. On September 20, 2000 Smith purchased the steamer Arctic Boy from Charles Oesterle, the representative and a principal of the United States Mining, Dredging and Lumber Company of Cincinnati Ohio. The terms were for Smith to pay $500 down and further sums of $4000 cash and $3000 in merchandise. Smith was given the right of inspection to determine that the steamer was as represented and was to receive a refund of the down payment if the steamer was not as represented.

On November 5, 2000 a new bill of sale was drawn up in which Charles Oesterle the Party of the First Part representing the United States Mining, Dredging and Lumber Company of Cincinnati Ohio, the principals being Charles Oesterle, Washington Meredith, J.O. Bonar, George W. Given, Everett N Murphy, A.G. Shelby, Norton E. Isbell, A.G. Southard, Charles Boutel, Charles F. Hunting, E.G. Kemmler, A.R. Washington and William E. W. Cherry sold the steamer Arctic Boy in consideration for “the sum of Seven Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($7500) ... to E.T. Barnette and Charles Smith, both of Circle City, Alaska, the parties of the second part.” The boat was described as “now lying in winter quarters about one half of a mile above the mouth of Crooked Creek, at the station known as the "Jump Off" and being about twenty-seven miles from Circle City, the said steamboat being scow shaped fore and aft, and of net and gross tonnage of about seventy-four tons.”

Also on November 5, 1900 the parties of the second part noted that the Arctic Boy was not in first class and satisfactory condition and another agreement was written in which it was "agreed that as the said boat has been transferred and set over to the second parties notwithstanding, that of the purchase price of the said boat, the sum of one thousand dollars shall be retained by them, to be expended under their direction in such repairs as may be necessary to put said boat in a good, first class and satisfactory condition as per agreement, the work to be completed not later than May 1, 1901, and that upon completion of the said work, the balance, if any remain of the money so retained, shall be paid to the first party.” The agreements of September 20th and November 5th were filed with the recorder’s office in Circle City on January 2, 1901.

Barnett retrieved the Arctic Boy in the spring of 1901 to keep his appointment with destiny. The 124-foot-long, 74-ton boat was taken to St. Michael where while cruising round the harbor it hit a rock and sank, thus disappearing from history. A Circle District Historical Society member has reported that Arctic Boy was salvaged and later (around 1940) was used by the Alaskan Sea Scouts.

Barnett was therefore forced to contract with Captain Charles W. Adams to use the 150-long LaVelle Young, a 506-ton vessel to attempt the journey up the Tanana past the Bates Rapids. He didn’t make it and was put ashore with his 130 tons of supplies on the Chena River thus being in the right place at the right time to meet Felix Pedro and Tom Gilmore. The settlement around his trading post, Barnett’s Cache, later became the City of Fairbanks. Eventually a railroad did reach the interior of Alaska. The railroad did not pass through Tanana Crossing, instead it terminated at Fairbanks.

So J.J. Healy’s dream of a railroad to the interior of Alaska inspired E.T. Barnett’s adventure up the Tanana and thus the founding of Fairbanks which in turn was a major cause for the building of the Alaskan Railroad.

 

 

 

Last Cleanup

Ed Gelvin
Ella Hosmer
Georgia Corey
George Hiller Sr.
Lois Meier
Joe & Dorothy Jackovich
Peggy Rouch Dodson

 

Memorials

C.D.H.S. has received memorial donations for Ed Gelvin, Don Nelson, Jim Morgan, Ella Hosmer, George Hiller Sr. Henry Choate and Georgia Corey from Bill Ellis, Gordon Fulton, J. & H. Wilde, Gen Nelson, Dick and Sylvia Boullion, Margaret McElligott, Jeanette Beaton, Evolyn Melville, Robert Roth, Jane Brand, Al Cook, Del Choate, Joy Morgan and Earl H. Beistline.

 

Donations

C.D.H.S. Has received donations for the period June 15, 2000, through June 1, 2001 from the following: Yvonne Newman, Gene Hume, Frank and Mary Warren, Fred and Judy Schenk, Mrs. Lilian Beach, William Weir, Otto A. Stoepler Jr., Olga and Jack Lloyd, Alaska Link, Robert and Grace Redding, Kathlene (Mike) Dalton, Evolyn Mellville, Elmer Parkison, Minnie E. Havens, Mr and Mrs. Benton Bejach, Irene Hiller, Hal Sherman, Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Berry, Murial Spetzman, Eunice and Jack Raymond, Jess Bachner, Earl Beistline, Mr. and Mrs. Jack G. Rice, George Stethers, Louise Largen, Genevieve Nelson, Fred Klingener, Charles Richmond, Lavelle Montgomery, Gerald and Carol Fulk, Richard Thibedeau, Carl and LaVene LaFontaine, Ms. Rosalie Whyel, L. Rowinski, H.O. and Jane Williams, Mary Lou Teel, Bert and Betsy Sharp, Rosalie L’Ecuyer, Connie and Carl Jeglum, Roger Jenkins, Andrew and Judith Kleinfeld, Bill and Colette Glanz, Mac and Linda Carter, George O’Leary, Gretchen Lake, Dean Willis, Rick Tyrrell & Family and Chris Kriendler.

 

Thank You

The Circle District Historical Society would like to express our appreciation to the above listed donors and also to contributors to our memorial fund. Also a thank you to all of the volunteers who have contributed their work to the efforts of the society.

The proceeding page shows our flyer for pictures of Flowers of the Circle District which are on sale in our sale shop. Also reproduced is a copy of our advertising poster. Please feel free to cut it out a post it on your favorite bulletin board