Editing Juneau, Alaska (section)

===Mining era and naming===
After the California gold rush, miners migrated up the [[West Coast of the United States|Pacific Coast]] and explored the West, seeking other gold deposits. In 1880, [[Sitka, Alaska|Sitka]] mining engineer George Pilz offered a reward to any local native in Alaska who could lead him to gold-bearing ore. A local native arrived with some ore, and several prospectors were sent to investigate. On their first trip to Gold Creek, they found deposits of little interest. However, Pilz sent [[Joe Juneau (prospector)|Joe Juneau]] (the cousin of [[Milwaukee]] co-founder [[Solomon Juneau]]) and [[Richard Harris (prospector)|Richard Harris]] back to the Gastineau Channel, directing them to Snow Slide Gulch (the head of Gold Creek). According to the Rev. Samuel Young, in his book ''Alaska Days with John Muir'', Juneau and Harris decided to explore their party's campsite at the creek head in the summer of 1879. They found nuggets "as large as peas and beans" there, in Harris' words.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}

On October 18, 1880, the two men marked a {{convert|160|acre|m2|adj=on}} town site and soon a mining camp sprang up. Many miners arrived within a year and the camp became a village, albeit made up mostly of tents and shacks rather than buildings. It was the first [[European American]] settlement founded in the territory after the United States [[Alaska Purchase|purchased Alaska]]. By the autumn of 1881, the village had a population of over 100 and was known as Rockwell, after Lt. Com. Charles Rockwell; later it was known as Harrisburg after prospector Richard Harris. On December 14, 1881, it was decided at a miners' meeting of 72 persons to name the settlement Juneau, after [[prospecting|prospector]] Joe Juneau.<ref name="Spencer">{{cite book |author=Arthur C. Spencer |title=The Juneau Gold Belt, Alaska, USGS Bulletin No. 287 |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |year=1906 |pages=2–3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ |title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States |publisher=Govt. Print. Off. |author=Gannett, Henry |year=1905 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n170 171] |access-date=November 12, 2015}}</ref>