Hatcher Pass is historic gold country
In 1906, Robert L. Hatcher staked and filed the first hard rock gold claim opeining one of the richest chapters in Alaska mining history lasting until 1953 when Independence Mine was finally closed. In the late 1970's, the Independence Mine State Historical Park was established, where today, guides lead walking tours among its romantic old buildings. The Hatcher Pass Lodge is situated on a ten acre private inholding within the 761 acre park and is under original ownership since Federal Patent Application in 1963.

Hatcher Pass

A jewel in the Matanuska Valley

Hatcher Pass is a beautiful recreation area 3,886 feet up in the Talkeetna Mountains of Alaska.

It's a popular place for skiing, snowmobiling, camping, hunting, white-water kayaking, berry-picking, parapenting, climbing, recreational gold-mining, mountain biking ans especially hiking.

Palmer is the closest town at approximately 12 miles to the south.

Hatcher Pass, Alaska Spring 2009 from Dennis Zaki on Vimeo.

Independence Mine

Robert Lee Hatcher discovered and staked the first lode gold claim in the Willow Creek Valley in September 1906, and others soon followed. But lode mining was expensive for an individual operator; it required elaborate tunnels and heavy equipment, so companies merged to pool resources and reduce expenses.

What is now called Independence Mine was once two mines: The Alaska Free Gold (Martin) Mine on Skyscraper Mountain, and Independence Mine on Granite Mountain. In 1938 the two were bought together under one company, the Alaska-Pacific Consolidated Mining Company (APC). With a block of 83 mining claims, APC became the largest producer in the Willow Creek Mining District. The claims covered more than 1,350 acres and included 27 structures. In its peak year, 1941, APC employed 204 men, blasted nearly a dozen miles of tunnels, and produced 34,416 ounces of gold worth $1,204,560; today $17,208,000. Twenty-two families lived in nearby Boomtown, with eight children attending the Territorial School in the new bunkhouse.

By 1942, the United States had entered World War II, and the War Production Board designated gold mining as nonessential to the war effort. Gold mining throughout the United States came to a halt, but Independence Mine continued to operate because of the presence of sheelite. Sheelite occurs in some of the quartz veins along with gold, and was a source of tungsten, a strategic metal. But because Independence Mine's scheelite production was low, the exemption was short-lived. In 1943, Independence Mine was ordered to close.

The wartime ban was lifted in 1946, but gold mining was slow to recover. After the war, gold could be sold only to the U.S. government at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. Postwar inflation raged, and gold mining became an unprofitable venture. Finally, in January of 1951, after mining nearly 6 million dollars' worth of gold, Independence Mine was closed by APC, and a chapter of Alaska's gold mining history came to an end. In 1974, Independence Mine was entered into the National Register of Historic Places, a list of cultural resources significant to American history. In the late 1970's, 271 acres of land were donated to the Alaska Division of Parks & Outdoor Recreation for establishment of Independence Mine State Historical

Marmot Wildlife
Dall sheep, moose, eagles, ptarmigan, marmots, pika, arctic squirrels, and bears among others.

Location:
12 miles from Palmer, Alaska. Around 52 miles north of Anchorage in the Matanuska Valley
Access:
Take the Glenn Highway north from Anchorage around 52 miles.