Walter Roman

(1907-to-1993)

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Over his many years in the North, Walter Roman was a resident of Juneau, Bird Creek, Circle City, Seward, Circle Hot Springs, Miller House, and Fairbanks. The shy, soft-spoken gentleman was well known to the Interior Alaska mining community for more than 60 years for outstanding skills using hydraulic technologies to remove overburden and mine gold.

Early Years

Walter Roman was born January 15, 1907, on a Cherokee Reservation in Oolagh, Oklahoma. His 2nd great grandparents were part of the Cherokee Nation, who were survivors of the Trail of Tears forced trek from Georgia to Oklahoma. Walter attended grammar school on the reservation until the 4th grade. His father died during the First World War and because Walter was eldest, had to go to work to help support the family. He did a variety of jobs during that time, most notably working for the railroad as part of the crew running steam locomotives.

In 1929, at the age of 22, he made his way North and began his life in Alaska. He arrived first in Juneau, where he took a job working for the Glacier Dairy owned by Frank Miers. In early 1930, he arrived at Fairbanks, later continuing a bit further North and worked with Morris O’Leary, Bert Thorson, and Johnny Palm as a mail carrier between Chatanika and Circle City using horses and dog teams.

Like many Alaskans, Walter did a wide variety of jobs and adventurous activities that provided him with a wide variety of skills and income over the years. Most notably he ran a fur trapline for many seasons between Circle City and Eagle and checked his sets mostly by dog team.

Roman’s Career in the Placer Mining Profession

During the summer months, beginning around 1930, Walter took a job working for Tony Zimmerman in his placer gold mine on Sourdough Creek in the Circle-Fairbanks District. Because of Walter’s previous experience running steam powered locomotives, he was perfect for running the steam powered equipment at the Zimmerman mine, so Tony hired him to run the boiler and slackline. During his time working at the mine, Walter learned how to efficiently mine using hydraulic removal of overburden & slackline equipment, along with seeing many incredible cleanups. According to the Biennial Territorial Mining Report for 1936-1937, Walter was one of 9 employees earning $6 to $8 per day plus board during the years 1930-to-1937. Walter had also helped at Zimmerman’s Pedro Creek placer mine as well. By this time, it was obvious that Walter had been bitten by the gold bug.

Later Walter moved further upstream on Sourdough Creek to Ruby Creek, working with Harry Mudge, Bill Weber, and Joe Gunn. Sometime in the late 1930’s Walter partnered up with Wilbur Jewell and Fred Powers. They relocated a cabin from the Central area to Gold Dust Creek where they mined until the start of World War II. It was at the Gold Dust Creek mine that Walter Roman’s mining firm, Lucky 7 Mining Company, was launched.

When World War II broke out Walter had to register for the draft. The military came in and confiscated all the mine’s equipment for the war effort. Walter’s military records indicate he was 5’ 10” tall and weighed 190 pounds. He had brown eyes, brown hair, and a light complexion. He also indicated that he could operate heavy equipment and drive trucks. His military service lasted from August 15, 1942, until his honorable discharge from the Army with the rank of Sergeant on October 30, 1945.

During World War II Walter served in a U.S. Army infantry division and participated in the Battle of Attu in Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain. That was the famous battle that took place in 1943 and was successfully fought by US and Canadian forces to take back the Island from the occupying Japanese forces. Walter received the Bronze Star, Asiatic Pacific Theatre Medal, A Combat Infantryman Badge, an American Theatre Medal and a Good Conduct Medal during his military service.

After the war, Walter was recompensed by the Federal Government for the forced acquisition of his mining equipment. With that influx of capital, he headed straight back to the hills north of Fairbanks. He loaded up a D8 Cat and go-devil with supplies and headed up and over the headwaters of Gold Dust Creek to prospect Great Unknown, Frying Pan Creeks; then up Clem’s Fork to Volcano and Bear Creeks with Eddy Oleary—mostly in the Circle Mining District.

He married Edith Rasmussen Steele in May of 1948. Edith was the daughter of Nels Rasmussen, the patriarch of the family that was very significant to the history of Circle City and the surrounding areas. Sadly the marriage did not last long. Edith had contracted Tuberculosis and he had to take her to Seward so she could enter the Sanitarium for treatment. She passed away there in December of 1952. Walter once again moved back North to his mine. In 1954, Walter married Ruth Hopkins in Fairbanks. Walter had previously purchased 10 patented claims on Mastodon Creek in the Circle district from the Jack Anderson Estate and had a lease with the Berry Company. In the late 1950’s. Walter acquired a Northwest Dragline and used the existing gravity ditch that was previously constructed by the Berry Company. While mining on Mastodon Creek, their family grew with the addition of two sons, Bobby and Ron, who grew up playing and working in the family’s mine and at the family’s stateside winter home in Palm Springs.

During the post-war years he helped to provide mechanical support services for the historic Alaska Freight Lines Snow Train expeditions that were contracted to supply the DEW Line sites along the Arctic Coasts of Alaska and Canada. The first winter, Walter kept both 12 Mile and Eagle summits on the Steese Highway open for the big trucks to traverse. Additionally, he went on two of these journeys. The first one was via Chatanika, Circle City, Fishhook Village (Chakyitsik), and Shingle Point on the Arctic Coast of Yukon Territory in Canada. On the second trip, they took a cat train from Eagle. He worked as a foreman from Blackstone River to Norman Wells in the Northwest Territory, through Great Bear Lake, Coronation Gulf, Cambridge Bay, and further East to Site 23 on the DEW Line.

In May of 1961, Walter Roman had acquired a lease agreement with Stanton Patty on the family dredging property on Coal Creek. Stanton was the son of Ernest Patty, the first professor of mining at the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, and later, the third president of the University of Alaska. While loading a building onto a barge owned by Bill Strack in Circle City, a chain slipped and a building fell on him. Luckily Walter’s head and arm were okay but the rest of him was pinned under the weight of the fallen structure, causing several locals to say he was a goner. Fortunately, Frank and Mary Warren checked his pulse and found he was still alive but his pulse was very weak. They all worked to carefully lift the building off him and transported him to Bassett Army Hospital (Bassett) in Fairbanks for treatment. The only thing that saved Walter in the accident was that the mud was thawed and provided some cushioning from the pressure of the building on his body.

Walter remained in Bassett for a couple of weeks and was then discharged. Subsequently he was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for further treatment and where he stayed for over a year. When he was finally discharged, the doctors told him never to work again and not to lift over 15 pounds. Walter Roman returned to Fairbanks in March of 1962.

The Roman Family shifted gears in 1963 when Walter took a lease from the USSR&M Company in Fish Creek basin in the eastern Fairbanks district and bought out (with the help of his wife’s family) legendary miners, Manny Olson and Andy Anderson of the Wolf Creek Mining Company, whose camp and equipment was at the mouth of Last Chance Creek in the Fairbanks Mining District. For the next 30 years the Roman family and crews mined miles of deep ground on Fish and Pearl Creeks. During that time Walter had to do a wide variety of jobs to keep his operations up and running. Other than extracting pay gravel, one of his priorities was to keep the miles of gravity fed ditch and thousands of feet of pipeline maintained and producing 300 feet of head pressure for hydraulic removal of overburden. Adequate water was the very lifeblood of the Lucky 7 Mine. It was vital for washing away the overburden, prewashing the pay, and finally sluicing the concentrated pay through the wash plant. He also had to strip the ground a year in advance of sluicing so the pay gravel could thaw prior to further processing. The overburden was enriched in the remains of fauna from the Pleistocene era.

Walter mined there until the IRS confiscated his leased ground from the Alaska Gold Company (formerly USSR&M), thus terminating his lease in 1993.

In 1972, members of the Japanese Mining Industry Association (JMIA) were in Alaska to tour mining and geologic sites in Alaska. One of their travel highlights was the tour of the Lucky 7 Mine given by Walter and Ruth Roman. At the mine, they marveled at the old, abandoned Fish Creek Dredge (Dredge #7 of the USSR&M Company) that was a relic of days gone by. They lined up along the elevated sluice box and watched as Walter fed the boxes using his dragline, and later demonstrated for them panning for gold in the cut. The visitors inspected all of Walter’s equipment and took a keen interest in his mining.

Later Years and Legacy

Walter Roman will always be remembered for his fabulous 1979 discovery of a 36,000-year-old frozen Steppe Bison mummy that was exposed during hydraulic removal of overburden operations at his mine on Pearl Creek. While running the nozzle, he noticed the front hoofs of the animal and decided to call the University of Alaska. Walter permitted UAF paleontologist Dr. Dale Guthrie to excavate the rest of the mummified frozen creature intact from the frozen overburden in the cut. It was then preserved and studied by many students and scientists at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks campus. Today the preserved bison is known as “Blue Babe” and is on display at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Walter’s discovery represents a world class find in the annals of Pleistocene studies.

During the summer of 1984, Walter Roman made the local news when Alaska’s Governor Bill Sheffield sent him with Carl Heflinger and Dr. Ernest Wolff to Washington D. C to demonstrate gold mining techniques and to discuss Alaska placer mining for spectators as part of the 1984 Festival of American Folklife. The three men suffered through sweltering temperatures and did their best to answer all the questions from the various onlookers to their display. One of the most-asked questions was “what does gold really look like?” The reply was “gold looks like gold!”

In 1985 Walter received the Alaska Miner’s Association Distinguished Mining Service Award that was signed by then AMA President Earl H. Beistline. He was recognized:

“for his continued, dedicated and persistent commitment in pioneering Alaska mining operations, often under adverse conditions; for his cooperative attitude in sharing his vast mining knowledge with his fellow miners of the mining industry; and for his indomitable faith in Alaska and mining in which he has been actively engaged.”

Walter Roman is best remembered for his longevity as an Alaskan gold miner with a mining career that spanned 63 years beginning in 1930 and continuing until his death in 1993. During that time Walter acquired knowledge from many legendary miners here in the Interior, later becoming a mining legend himself during his long Alaskan mining career.

Written by Joan Sklibred; edited by T.K. Bundtzen

Selected Sources

Boswell, John C., 1979, History of Alaskan Operations of United States Smelting, Refining, and Mining Company: Mineral Industry Research Laboratory Publication, 126 pages.

Guthrie, Mary Lee, 1988, Blue Babe—The story of a Steppe Bison Mummy from Ice Age Alaska: Published by White Mammoth, Fairbanks, Alaska; printed by Lorraine Press, Salt Lake City, USA 31 pages.

Stewart, B.D., 1939, Report of the Commissioner of Mines to the Governor for Biennium Ended December 31, 1938, Alaska Territorial Department of Mines, 64 pages.

Williams, J.A., 1963, Division of Mines and Minerals Report for the Year 1963: Alaska Department of Natural Resource Annual Report, 119 pages.

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