![]() ![]() By the end of World War I, Hammon recognized that the placer deposits in frozen ground at Nome and Fairbanks were large enough for consolidated operations and could be mined if the ground could be thawed economically. Hammon, however, was a better placer mine developer than lode miner. For a while it was the largest hard rock gold mine in the world. Jackling, then helped, technically and financially, to open the Alaska-Gastineau Mine. The Perseverance was renamed the Alaska-Gastineau. Hammon aided Louis Shackleford and Bartlett Thane in negotiations in London on the acquisition of Colonel Sutherland's Perseverance lode mine in Juneau. One of Hammon's early ventures in Alaska was hard rock, not placer. His well engineered and constructed boats could not compete with off-the-shelf "home made" placer dredges on small Alaska projects. In general, Hammon was not interested in constructing small flume-type dredges for the Alaska trade. Shovel Creek's operator was Newton Cleveland, who had been a Hammon chief engineer. One was a bucket-line dredge used successfully at Shovel Creek, a tributary to the Solomon River on the Seward Peninsula. A few small Hammon-constructed dredges arrived in Alaska before 1920. In 1907 he considered, and rejected, a large-scale hydraulic operation at Fairbanks. Originally Hammon believed that dredging possibilities were limited at Nome. Hammon's first move towards Alaska began approximately in 1906 shortly after the discovery of the rich Third Beach near Little Creek in Nome, and recognition of extensive placer deposits in the Fairbanks District. Hammon was born at Conneautville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania to Marshall M. Hammon began to engage in mining ventures just before the start of the twentieth century by 1910, he was known to many, accurately, as the "Dredger King." He balanced his mining and other activities throughout a long and productive life. Hammon was a pioneer in two industries - horticulture and mining - and principal in several others, including oil and gas development, and hydroelectric power generation. ![]()
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