Alice Rollins-Crane (1856 – 1929)
	
Alice Rollins was born in Indiana to J.J. and Hannah Rollins. Alice’s widowed mother moved the family from Indiana to Ohio and then to Iowa. Alice married Frank Higbee in 1877 and they divorced in 1880, remarried in the same year, and divorced again in 1890. Alice travelled west and in 1894, married Lorin P. Crane in Los Angeles, and they too eventually divorced. Rollins-Crane moved to Arizona and met scout Thomas Jeffords who was famous for negotiating a peace with Apache Chief Cochise.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane))

Rollins-Crane was an amateur anthropologist who claimed to have lived among the Apache for nine years although there is no evidence that this ever happened. She wrote an essay saying no sites in the United States were worthy of archaeological study, and that local First Nations had no connection with the builders of La Casa Grande. She became a devotee of Chinese medicine as an alternative to surgery.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane))  

Alice came to the Yukon over the White Pass in 1898. She claimed she had a commission with the Smithsonian and credentials from several newspapers and journals. In Dawson she worked as a writer, author and miner.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane)) She was living in West Dawson close to the wealthy tourists Mrs. Hitchcock and Miss Edith Van Buren. The //Klondike Nugget// newspaper reported on a dinner she helped them host for the United States Consul-General McCook. After dinner the party retired to Mrs. Crane’s new cabin where they received the latest news about the Spanish American war.((//Klondike Nugget,// 13 August 1898.))
	
In 1898, Rollins-Crane organized and became the manager of the Los Angeles Woman's Mining Syndicate, a group of about fifty women who paid $2500 to develop Yukon mining properties. The contract read that the property would be owned by Alice Rollins-Crane with a certain percentage being paid back to the syndicate. The syndicate was never officially incorporated. In 1900, the same women organized the Los Angeles and Yukon Mining Company and acquired an interest in Rollins-Crane's mining properties including Claim 36 Below Discovery on Hunker Creek.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane))  

In 1900, Alice was employed as a prison guard. She interviewed Tagish men on death row about their religious beliefs and concluded that they were sun-worshippers. Rollins-Crane and William Galpin started a relationship in Dawson. Galpin was an author and a miner. In 1903, she launched a lawsuit against him for assault after a dispute over the authorship of //The Widow of Dawson.// She sent the manuscript to publishers and he ordered it sent back.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane)) The trial was a sensation in the newspapers and involved a “Count” Moracewski, a rival for Rollins-Crane’s attention.((“Count and Countess accused; The Moracewskis Charged with Trying to Murder Capt. Galpin.” //The New York Times// (New York), 29 February 1904.)) The charges were dismissed in May 1903. Galpin later charged Rollins-Crane with perjury and, in 1903 wrote to her stockholders to say that she was not working in their best interests.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane)) 

After the trial Rollins-Crane married the Russian Count and they left the Yukon via the Yukon River.((“Count and Countess accused; The Moracewskis Charged with Trying to Murder Capt. Galpin.” //The New York Times// (New York), 29 February 1904.)) A report in a San Franciscan newspaper said that the Count, Countess and Galpin were on their way to Russia, via St. Michael, to take charge of the Count’s ancestral estates.((“Countess Attempts Murder.” //San Francisco Call// (San Francisco), Volume 94, Number 130, 8 October 1903.)) At Russian Mission, Galpin confronted the pair saying they had stolen his diary and account books. The Countess tried to shoot Galpin in the face, but he had removed the powder from the cartridges. The Count and Countess were arrested and taken to Nome where they were charged with attempted murder.((“Count and Countess accused; The Moracewskis Charged with Trying to Murder Capt. Galpin.” //The New York Times// (New York), 29 February 1904.))

The Countess was charged with contempt of court three times during the preliminary hearing. Their bail was set at $5,000.((“Count and Countess accused; The Moracewskis Charged with Trying to Murder Capt. Galpin.” //The New York Times// (New York), 29 February 1904.)) They were jailed after they were unable to post bail. During this time, Alice was writing for the //National Geographic Magazine// and the //Dawson Daily News.//((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane)) 

After she left the north, Alice Moraczewski established the Alaska Glacier Ice Cream Parlour in Rhyolite, Nevada. She and the Count owned the Owl’s Head Mine northeast of Tuscon and handled the estate of Tom Jeffords. Rolllins-Crane is buried in an unmarked grave in Los Angeles.((“Alice Rollins-Crane.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Rollins-Crane)) 
	
Alice Rollins-Crane compiled //Smiles and Tears from the Klondyke// (New York: Doxey’s at the Sign of the Lark) and was the author of //Our Klondyke Success//((//Wide World Magazine,// 1901.)) Ten of her Yukon photographs are held at the Smithsonian Institution. One shows five members of a party pulling sleds with the caption “first lady stampeder on Thistle Creek.”((“Alice Rollins Crane photograph collection relating to the Yukon.” Smithsonian Institution, Online Finding Aid, 2019 website:  http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=Alice+Crane))