List of Quarries in Alaska & Quarry Links, Photographs and Articles
Prince of Wales Island (Continued)

• Prince of Wales Island, Dry Pass, Alaska – Southeast Alaska’s Marble History:  El Capitan, presented by Fathom Stone of Whistler, British Columbia.
  

• Prince of Wales Island, near Shakan, Alaska – Historical notes about Tokeen Marble – Alaska Historical Files, Alaska State Library Historical Collections, Bayers, Lloyd H., 1911-1968, Captain Lloyd H. “Kinky” Bayers Collection, 1898-1967, MS 10.  (Subjects included on the note cards are:  (1)  “Marble” Marble discovered on Prince of Wales Island near Shakan; Vermont Marble Co. marble quarries at Shakan and Tokeen; Marble discovered by Vermont Marble Co. at El Capitan Pass; the Tokeen marble plant; (2)  “Mines and Mining”: “3. Alaskan (Sitka) History of Alaska Marble (John the Baptist Bay—1874”)
• Prince of Wales Island, near Shakan, Alaska – the El Capitan Mining Company (Marble) (The following information is from “Marble Production in Individual States,” Mineral Resources of the United States, 1905, David T. Day, Chief of Division, Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1906, pp. 1054.)

  “Only a small quantity of Alaskan marble was put upon the market in 1905, and that was chiefly for the local monument trade…The El Capitan Mining Company, near Shakan, on the northwest coast of Prince of Wales Island, has shipped some stone, but was not operating in 1905.”

  • Prince of Wales Island, north of Shakan, Alaska – the El Capitan Marble Company (circa 1907) (Marble) Excerpt from “The Building Stones and Materials of Southeastern Alaska,” by Charles W. Wright, in Mineral Resources of Alaska: Report on Progress of Investigations in 1907, Bulletin 345, by Alfred H. Brooks and Others, Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, 1908, 119-120.

    El Capitan Marble Company.

    “The property of the El Capitan Marble Company is situated on the eastern side of a low mountain range 5 miles due east of the Alaska Marble Company’s quarry and on the north side of Dry Pass. These locations, including 10 claims, were first made in 1901 and were sold to the El Capitan Marble Company in 1903. Except for a small amount of assessment work, operations were not begun until April, 1904. During that year a quarry consisting of a pit 12 feet deep was opened on a marble deposit close to tide water, a channeling and gadding machine was installed, and a cutting plant operated by steam power was erected. Some marble was quarried and shipped to Seattle at the close of the year, but since that time operations have been suspended.

    “The marble deposit flanks the eastern side of the granite mass represented on the geologic map (Plate II) and from its relative position and general character is similar to the Marble Creek deposit farther west. The marble best is exposed at tide water and forms high bluffs at 200 to 400 feet elevation one-fourth of a mile back from the shore. In these bluffs it has been prospected by trenches and open cuts. A number of diabase dikes crosscut the marble beds. The dikes are faulted and show in many places several feet of displacement, though this faulting, as well as the intrusion of the dikes, probably occurred previous to the metamorphism of the original limestone beds, as no trace of the fault planes could be seen, and the dikes themselves were much altered and sheared. The marble as exposed in the quarry is not of so good quality as that from the Marble Creek property, being less firm and more coarsely crystalline. Surface cracks and fracture planes are present in the surface exposures, but in the bottom of the pit these features are less pronounced.”

  • Prince of Wales Island, near Shakan, Alaska – the El Capitan Marble Company (circa 1907/1908) (Marble) Excerpt from “Building Stones,” The Ketchikan and Wrangell Mining Districts of Alaska, Bulletin 347, by Fred Eugene Wright and Charles Will Wright, Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908, pp. 195-196.

    El Capitan Marble Company.

    “The property of the El Capitan Marble Company is situated on the eastern side of a low mountain range 5 miles due east of the Alaska Marble Company’s quarry and on the north side of Dry Pass. These locations, including ten claims, were first made in 1901 and were sold to the El Capitan Marble Company in 1903. Except for a small amount of assessment work, operations were not begun until April, 1904. During that year a quarry consisting of a pit 12 feet deep was opened on a marble deposit close to tide water, a channeling and gadding machine was installed, and a cutting plant operated by steam power was erected. Some marble was quarried and shipped to Seattle at the close of the year, but since that time operations have been suspended.

    “The marble deposit flanks the eastern side of the granite mass represented on the geologic map, and from its relative position and general character is similar to the Marble Creek deposit farther west. The marble belt is exposed at tide water and forms high bluffs at 200 to 400 feet elevation one-fourth mile back from the shore. In these bluffs it has been prospected by trenches and open cuts. Several diabase dikes crosscut the marble beds. The dikes are faulted and show in many places several feet of displacement, though this faulting as well as the intrusion of the dikes probably occurred previous to the metamorphism of the original limestone beds, as no trace of fault planes could be seen, and the dikes themselves were made altered and sheared. The marble as exposed in the quarry is not of so good quality as that from the Marble Creek property, being less firm and more coarsely crystalline. Surface cracks and fracture planes are present in the surface exposures, but in the bottom of the pit these features are less pronounced.”

  • Prince of Wales Island, near Shakan, Alaska – El Capitan Marble Company Quarry (Marble) (photograph) This photograph is presented on the United States Geological Survey Photographic Library.

    (photo caption) “Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Quarry of El Capitan Marble Company. Wales district, Southeastern Alaska region. Circa 1912.”

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