Libraries, Archives, Museums: MIning in Alaska primary source collections: Home

Mining in Alaska

This guide consists of collections of primary source material held by Alaskan archives, libraries, and museums, which deal with mining activities in Alaska. The guide is divided into sections, based on the type of ore or mineral. You can navigate between these sections using the menu on the left-hand side of the page. This guide is an overview of collections containing significant amounts of material relating to the mining in Alaska and is not meant to be comprehensive or include every collection containing material related to the topic. For collections related to oil, petroleum, or the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, these can be found in a separate guide.

Click on the linked collection names for more detailed descriptions of the collections. Not every collection listed has a description online. For more information about a collection, please contact the institution that owns the collection. The institution names in the lists are linked to each institution's main page. Some individual collection links will take you to a catalog search: usually searching the title of the collection in the catalog search will bring up the finding aid.

Selected items related to mining in Alaska from many of the institutions represented in this guide have been digitized and added to Alaska's Digital Archives. You can use the search box at the top right of the homepage to search for these materials.

If you represent an institution that holds primary source material related to mining activities in Alaska and you you like to see it included in this guide, please contact the UAA/APU Consortium Library Archives and Special Collections.

General collections covering many types of mining

Alaska. State Recorder's Office. District and Territorial Court Recorder's volumes and State Recorder's Office Records, 1850-1975 RG510
Alaska State Archives
This series contains records generated by the District (1884-1912) and Territorial (1912-1959) courts, which acted as Recorders in Alaska until Statehood. The Series also contains records generated by State Courts and State Recorder's Office in post-Statehood Alaska. Includes mining claims. In addition, the Alaska State Archives holds archival records from many state and territorial government offices related to mining in Alaska.
Anaconda Minerals collection, 1974-1984.
Alaska Resources Library and Information Services
The Anaconda Minerals Collection comprises approximately 10,500 indexed records of Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI) mineral exploration data. This collection includes more than ten years of minerals exploration data collected between 1974 and 1984 throughout Alaska by the Anaconda Minerals Company, as well as information collected by various other mining companies. The data set includes geological, geochemical, and geophysical reports, surveys, field notes, maps, and figures.
U.S. Bureau of Mines Minerals Availability System (MAS) records, circa 1960-1996
The Minerals Availability System (MAS) was a U.S. Bureau of Mines program of on-site mine inspections begun in the early 1960s to measure and classify identified mineral resources according to their extraction technologies, economics. and commercial availability. The files contain information on occurrences, deposits, mines, and processing facilities.
U.S. National Park Service. Cultural Resource mining inventory and compliance records, 1899-2003, undated (bulk dates: 1970-1999).
The Cultural Resources Mining Inventory and Monitoring (CRMIM) Program was established in 1986 for the purpose of surveying National Park Service lands to find and document abandoned mines and mining camps. During a decade of fieldwork, survey crews recorded nearly 350 sites in nine Alaska parks and preserves. Other program responsibilities included reviewing mining plans of operations to ensure that historic sites were not adversely affected by mining operations and working with mineral validity examinations, access requests, reclamation plans, and mining-related environmental assessments. This subseries contains the CRMIM program’s records.

Credits

This guide is supported in whole or in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Alaska State Library.