2017 Summer Newsletter

Miami Republican, February 8, 1901 J ack Dalton returned to Miami County last Saturday for a visit of a week to his parents, Mrs. and Mrs. Jo seph Dalton, in Osage Township. Jack was raised in Miami County, but for upwards of twenty years has been in the northern country. He opened the famous Dalton trail in the Klondyke and was among the first to explore the Kiondyke and Alaskan gold fields. The Dalton trail cost him a great

Dalton’s pioneering trail crossed Arizona, Oregon and Washington before he headed north in the 1880s. He punched cattle, drove stages and then between 1886 and 1889 took his string of horses to the north ern territory. In Alaska, he also took the first coal out of the Chickaloon mines and helped survey the routes for the Alaska and Copper river railroads.

deal of money to make it reasonably passable, and it proved to be a profitable investment by collecting tolls. He has men constantly at work on the trail, keeping it open. He says it does not pay him the dividend it did a few years ago, as the railroad is fast pene trating Alaska. Mr. Dalton has been visiting the principal

Mr. Dalton was a son of the late Joseph and Johanna Cunningham Dalton, Irish pioneers of Osage town ship, who came to Kansas in the early seventies. The pioneer trail blazer left home in his youth, responding to the call of adventure in the wild west and north west, and he never returned here to reside. Surviving are a daughter, Mrs. U.S. Grant, of San Francisco, and two sons, Ensign James Dalton, USN, and Jack Dalton, Jr. of Los Angeles. Brothers and sis ters of the deceased are Jennie Dalton, of Kansas City, Mrs. Lawrence Moran, of Fulton, Kansas; Sarah, Kitty, Mike and Dan, of Fontana, and James Dalton, of Paola. Miami Co. Genealogy Society, Paola, KS, Vol. 10, No. 1 Page 2 For more information about Jack Dalton go to this web site. http://www.sheldonmuseum.org/vignettes/jack-dal ton-dalton-trail Jack Dalton, shown here with one of his pack horses that was trained to wear snowshoes on the snowy Klondike trails VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: Front Desk (1/2 or full day), computer input, arrang ing displays, moving help, grant writers, interview ers, history researchers

Jack Dalton

cities and points of interest in Europe since last Sep tember. He has the contract for carrying supplies to the American and British troops who are located in the interior of Alaska. Mr. Dalton has a number of gold claims in various parts of Alaska and says some of them are valuable. He says a man may put into his claim thousands of dollars and not strike anything worth working, while on the next claim a poor man with his pick and shovel may strike it rich. He intends going back from here to Seattle, from where he will ship a large drove of cattle and take them into the interior of Alaska. Miami Republican, December 1945 PIONEER ALASKAN TRAIL BLAZER DIES Word of the death of Jack Dalton, one of the most colorful of the early Alaskan sourdoughs, the man who cut the famous Dalton trail to Haines in the Alas kan Territory, has been received by relatives in this county Mr. Dalton died December 16 in San Francisco at the age of 89 years and his body Was taken to Seattle for burial on December 23.

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