This place was originally called the Fairbanks Exploration Company gold dredge #3. It was established in 1923 as a gold mining operation. Between 1926 and 1957, some $70 million worth of gold was extracted from this lake. At one time the population of the mining camp reached 10,000, making it bigger than Fairbanks, Alaska! The dredge ceased operations in 1962. It changed hands several times before Jane Haigh and Patricia Peirsol bought the property in 1997. Haigh is a historian and a professor at Kenai Peninsula College. Rather than turning it into…
