Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1920 — LID IS NOW ON IN ALASKA [ARTICLE]

LID IS NOW ON IN ALASKA

Newest Mining Camp Is Real “Spoyess Town.” Gold Seekers Rushing There In Spring Will Find Place Quiet as Church. Ketchikan, Alaska.—Hyder, newest of Alaskan mining camps, is a “spotless town” and many stampeders who may rush there in the spring are not going to find drinking." dancing and gambling going on wide open, as in the gold camps of the first stampede In *9B, long before prohibition came, according to reports received here. If Hyder’s new residents find anything out of the ordinary next spring they may find it in Stewart, a Canadian town not far from Hyder. It Is probable, however, that the red-coated constables of the Royal Northwestern Mounted police, who kept order at

Dawson in the gold days, will be at Stewart next spring to see that things are within the law. For a very brief period this winter Hyder was “wide open,” according to reports. t “Whisky and beer were sold at many bars, girls were dancing, pianos were thumped and roulette, blackjack and faro were being played,” wrote one miner from the town. Then John Ronan, former territorial senator, was appolnted United States marshal and he closed everything up. "Bang went the lid and hundreds could not get away from Hyder fast enough," the miner wrote. “Many went to Stewart. There everything seems to be wide open.” Hyder would have had a population of 20,000 In three months if the “lid” had been left off, the miner predicted. But the “lid” was clamped down and the population dwindled.