The Wrangell Garnet Ledge -- A History That Goes Beyond Entrepreneurship

      Wrangell’s garnet ledge is known for the burgundy-colored garnets sold to tourists by Wrangell children that was owned by the first all-woman mining corporation in the United States. Both have been an equally impressive business venture as the corporation was founded in an era where women were almost excluded from the business world and local children have been known to put themselves through college from the proceeds of their garnet sales.

      What many may not realize is that Wrangell’s garnet ledge has a history that goes beyond entrepreneurship by women and children. Other than the gold mining that was conducted a long the banks of the Stikine River, it is the most active area of mining for non-metal ore along the historic river. There have been at least 28 claims filed in the area of the ledge and at least two leases to the site beginning in 1881. Not to mention the distinct possibility that the Stikine Tlingits may have used the garnets as trade with other tribes.

While all of the claims filed in the area of the garnet ledge up until 1906 were all intended to make money, they were very quickly abandoned within a year or two of filing. It was a lot of hard work. It required hauling the garnet (the majority of it in matrix) down to the banks of the Stikine River and then transporting them across the mouth of the river to Wrangell by boat or barge. Once there, they had to be off loaded onto the dock and readied for shipment or stored so that they could be sold to tourists as cabinet specimens. It was no doubt much easier to mine for gold!

      The first attempt at commercial operation of the ledge was by a group of men from Chicago. It may be that they didn’t fully understand just how much work was involved until they got into it and evidently got out of the business just as quickly.  It was a group of women from Minnesota that really showed how mining the ledge could be done. They worked hard and they invested a great deal of money into the venture. Did they get rich? Probably not considering so little information has been found about the women. Certainly a rich female miner from Alaska would garner a great deal of press in those days!

      The women that information could be found were either in the limelight because of the work they did locally or because they were active in local social circles or church. They are the ones that give a bit of insight into all of the women of the corporation. Some of the women were single. Some married late in life, while others remained single. Others had married and were widows at the time the corporation was formed. And of those, at least one remarried after the corporation was formed. It appears that most of the women had careers outside of the home. They were teachers, a stenographer; nurse, and insurance salesman. Just to travel to Alaska from Minnesota either alone or in the company of each other was impressive. Few women traveled alone in those days—and especially not alone to Alaska. More importantly, they were operating a mine in Alaska! --copyright 2005 Trish Neal

Printable Brochure Wrangell Garnet Ledge 
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Mining Wrangell History Newsletter

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The AGM&M Co. Board of Directors

Update: I have found all 10 women!  I will post information on the rest of the women soon!

 The following women may be the "silent" stockholders -- part of the original 15 stockholders:

	Julia Elmer Duff		Mrs. Belle Hazen
	Julia M. Durkee		Jennie Sanders (Belle's sister)
	One of Jean Anderson's sisters??

 These women were connected to the corporation and one or
all could have been part of the original corporation.

	Mrs. R.D. Currier friend who traveled to Alaska with Belle Hazen and could have been another member of the corporation.
	Agnes Seamans   from Minneapolis; purchased mining claim with Durkee at Wrangell and later demanded investment money returned; had shares in corporation as collateral. Have an Agnes Seamans who died in 1935 at the age of 76 years of age. Have also found two other Agnes Seamans in the census records.

Did Anna E. Durkee or the AGM&M Co. have a patent?

Update June 2005: Found! Thanks to Walt at the Minneapolis Public Library (US Patent     
 Depository Library), we have a copy of the Patent! 
       Hurray! It was applied for in 1912 and Patented in 1913.

From an interview with Anna E. Durkee in 1918:   

Although the Alaska garnet is worth considerable more than the Bohemian gm, Miss Durkee says that the most valuable thing about the mine is a product made from garnet waste.

    “One day when I was hard at work in the laboratory with our chemist I noticed that when melted garnets did not fuse with iron or brass, and this set me to thinking whether it wasn’t possible to find some use for the waste material of which we had hundreds of thousands to tons.  For months I studied and experimented and at last formulated a theory which, if it proved practical, the chemist informed me meant a fortune.

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