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Albert J. Lowe
A J. LOWE was one of the first men to arrive in Nome in the spring of 1899. He followed the ice down the Yukon, arriving in Nome in June. His first mining operations were on the beach which was discovered soon after arrival. He was appointed special Deputy Marshal by United States Commissioner
Rawson, and took an active part in the Consent Government, being a councilman in
Nome's first council, and when the federal officers in July, 1900, arrived, he was appointed to a deputyship in the marshal's office under Mr. Vawter. He was reap-
pointed as deputy marshal by Mr. Richards who succeeded Mr. Vawter, and held the position of jailer during the latter's incumbency. Mr. Lowe is a native of New York and is forty-three years old. In his younger days he was agent of the Adams Express Company in Boston. He went to Dawson
over the White Pass in '97, and never has been out of the country since. His first
winter was spent at Dawson and Forty-Mile. He had many interesting experiences
in the Yukon, and has seen Nome in nearly every phase of its existence and growth.
When he arrived in Nome, June 27, 1900, the camp consisted of only a few tents. Later when the beach diggings were discovered he paid twenty dollars for a
rocker made out of soap boxes and starch boxes. At that time there were not more than half a dozen rockers in the camp. Some that were in use were whipsawed
out of drift-wood, and put together with nails drawn out of boxes. Mr. Lowe's
first day's work on the beach with his rocker netted him $140. He says he has seen
(spots on bedrock in the beach literally covered with gold.
As a member of the Consent Government Council
Mr. Lowe was on the street committee, and in the spring of 1900 the sanitary
work and the work of draining the 'streets, for which an appropriation of
$15,000 was made by the Chamber of Commerce, was under his supervision. Mr. Lowe
has made an efficient federal officer. He is a brave man who never shrunk from
difficult or dangerous work. As an officer under Commissioner Rawson in the
early and trying days of Nome he did his share in preserving peace, maintaining
order and enforcing the law.
Source: Nome and Seward Peninsula by R. S.
Harrison. Seattle: The Metropolitan Press, 1905.
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