- 1880

Portrait of R.T. Harris and Joe Juneau. Old Tillicum cigar box picture, ca. 1900. Richard Tighe-Harris family papers,Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage. UAA-hmc-0131-series5b-59-2.

Kaawa.ee in later years after Juneau’s founding. Alaska State Library, Alaska State Library Portrait File. Photographs ASL-Cowee-01; P01-1155

Sitka mining engineer George Pilz employed prospectors Richard Harris and Joe Juneau that summer to check out reports of gold from Áak’w leader Kaawa.ée (aka Kowee or Cowee) in the Gastineau Channel area. Kaawa.ée with 2 other tribal people showed them gold in Silverbow Basin. Harris and Juneau staked the first placer and lode claims October 4 and Harris established the Harris Mining District the same day. Harris also named the Silver Bow Basin at the head of the Gold Creek watershed for the Silver Bow mining district in Montana.

On October 18, he and Juneau claimed a 160-acre townsite at Miner’s Cove near the outlet of Dzantik’i Héeni stream, which they named Gold Creek. The site was by a traditional Áak’w summer fishing location. Word quickly spread and the first real gold rush in Alaska saw about 40 miners in the new townsite by year’s end, now known as Harrisburg(h) (spelled both ways).[3] It was the first town established in Alaska after the American purchase.