INTO THE KENAI 199 



discovered in 1913 on the Shushanna River, one of the 

 tributaries of the White. The '^Guggs/' as this syndi- 

 cate is familiarly called, began life as the sons of a poor 

 peddler in Philadelphia. They migrated to Colorado and 

 became interested in the lead-smelting business, event- 

 ually extending their operations to various other metal 

 traffics. By this time they had obtained great interests 

 in Alaska and owned or controlled many of the most 

 important mining and transportation properties. It was 

 the fear that these and similar large groups of capitalists 

 would secure control of most of the natural resources in 

 Alaska that led the administration in Washington to 

 withdraw coal lands from entry in 1906 and to create 

 vast forest reserves in southeastern and southwestern 

 Alaska. That this fear was not shared by all of the 

 residents of Alaska is illustrated by the remark of one of 

 the individual mine owners in Nome who said, "Wash- 

 ington is afraid that the 'Guggs' will buy us all out. 

 Our only fear is that they will not." 



After the embargo of 1906, development work in 

 Alaska was at a standstill. The Copper River and 

 Northwestern Railway proved to be an unfortunate 

 investment as a common carrier, although it was said 

 that the Guggenheims had taken out enough copper to 

 pay for their total capital outlay. Nevertheless the 

 initials of the railway's name, C. R. and N. W., were 

 locally interpreted "Can't run and never will." Although 

 this opinion may be unjust, it was admitted that the 

 great snowfall and the quantities of ice lodged by the 

 glaciers on the Copper River made the line very expen- 

 sive to keep open. 



Valdez, a community of rather more than one thou- 

 sand people, is situated at the head of the bay of that 



