Anvil Creek is a stream in Alaska. Part of it is in the

Nome mining district The Nome mining district, also known as the Cape Nome mining district, is a gold mining district in the U.S. state of Alaska. It was discovered in 1898 when Erik Lindblom, Jafet Lindeberg and John Brynteson, the "Three Lucky Swedes", found pla ...

near

Nome, Alaska Nome (; ik, Sitŋasuaq, ) is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of Alaska, United States. The city is located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. It had a population of 3,699 recorded ...

and became a center of gold rush attention after three Swedes found gold along it. The resulting influx of prospectors brought thousands of people to Nome in the spring of 1899. The large

placer mine Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed (alluvial) deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment. Placer mining is frequently used for pr ...

gold find was one of the first in Alaska and the Anvil Creek Gold Discovery Site was one of the richest placer claim sites ever found in Alaska. It yielded more than $5 million during its first five years. By 1965 the site was "largely returned to nature". The gold find helped trigger the Nome gold rush. The mines in the area included Nome Beach and the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...

. The activity led to the establishment of Nome. Claim jumpers tried to challenge the Swedes claims to the Anvil Creek claims based on their nationality. A government corruption case involving judges and politicians including Alexander McKenzie and

Arthur H. Noyes Arthur H. Noyes (April 15, 1853 – March 19, 1915) was a lawyer in Minnesota and Dakota Territory who was appointed a Republican federal judge in the Territory of Alaska during the Alaskan gold rush era.McGrath, Hugh J. et alHistory of the Grea ...

also developed. Teller Road crosses the creek one mile below the site and the area is now home to

wind turbines A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

. Another one of the gold mining areas by the creek was an alluvial placer gold mine in Nekula Gulch by a headwater tributary to Anvil Creek. The Caribou Bill mine (NM238) is also nearby. There is an Anvil Creek fault.

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Further reading