Granby-Alaska Company Records

The collection contains records of the Granby-Alaska Company, incorporated in 1906 to operate a gold mine in Omilak on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. The mine was started by John C. Green who was associated with the Russian-American Mining and Exploration Company in Washington State. In 1906 Green conveyed the mining property to George Burnham, Jr. of Portland, Maine, and S.H.C. Miner of Granby, Quebec Province; Alfred D. Chandler of Brookline, Massachusetts, Charles C. Young of Ellsworth, Maine, and Webster R. Dorr of Boston also became trustees of the new company. Burnham and Miner supplied most of the money to develop and carry out mining operations, agreeing to loan the company $65,000 to start work in Alaska. Burnham was a pioneer in the canned goods packing business and head of the Burnham and Morrill Company in Portland. He was also an investor in New York City real estate and one of the richest citizens of Maine. Miner was one of the first businessmen in Granby and operated a tannery and a rubber business there. The mining company had problems from the start with failure to obtain working capital and dissension among the trustees and Green, who was working as general manager. Alfred Chandler traveled to Alaska in the summer of 1907 to see to the company's interests and reported favorably on its progress. However, by 1908 the company's creditors began to take legal action and after a failed attempt to mortgage the company's property, all of the trustees except John Green resigned. After this, litigation and efforts to salvage as much as possible were the predominating efforts of all involved. Georg Burnham died in January, 1909, and the administrators of his estate continued efforts to settle claims and pay expenses. Legal proceedings continued for some years and by 1923 it appears that Green had succeeded in raising some money and work had resumed at the mine. However, a letter in the collection written in 1933 indicates that no production had been reported from the property for many years.