Nicolas Milosovitch (1874 – 1964)

Nick Milosovitch was born in Yugoslavia. He came to American as a young man and worked in the gold fields of Alaska until the late 1890s. He spent twelve years in Dawson before moving on to mine in the Mayo district.¹⁾

Nick and Andy Droshny were the only two men from Yugoslavia in the Keno area around 1950, but they didn’t get along. Milosovitch owned the Cream claim on the lower north slope of Galena Hill about two miles up from the United Keno Hector mine. He lived in a small cabin made of poles with a dirt floor and a roof made of cottonwood bark. Nick contacted mine manager Brodie Hicks to see if the company wanted to buy his claim so he could return to the old country to die. Hicks and Bill Smitheringale examined the mine and subsequently offered Nick $50,000; ten percent down and the remainder in the form of a cash payment every month as long as they continued working. They asked Nick to come to sign the papers, but a messenger thought he had changed his mind. When he did arrive, he claimed the cheque should be for $10,000 and refused to sign. He died a few months later, and Hicks handled the sale through the estate and the Public Trustee. A few months of exploration work concluded there was no hope of economic development on the claim.²⁾