Aaron Alexander Knorr (b. 1860)
Aaron Knorr came north from the United States, perhaps Portland, in 1899. His wife, Mary Knorr, and their four children followed him in 1900. Aaron and Mary are in the Mayo mining records in 1906. They lived and prospected on Little Dominion Creek. He met Margaretta Morgan who was operating a Dawson restaurant on Front Street near the ferry cable tower. Julia Bonnetplume was working in the restaurant, and she told of a rich gold deposit discovered by her father Andrew Flett Bonnetplume in the Bonnetplume country. Aaron left his family on Dominion Creek and travelled into the Hart River country with some Gwich’in people. He returned to sell shares in what he described as the mother lode. His investors may have included prominent citizens Judge Charles Macaulay, George Craig, Finlayson, Cribbs, and many miners from the creeks. Knorr raised a reputed $20,000 and in 1910, Mrs. Morgan sued him for a share of the rich deposit that was never located. Mary left the country that summer, and Aaron left for the Bonnetplume with Julia Bonnetplume. Aaron and Julia disappeared without a trace sometime after 1919. In 1940, the Barz brothers, who were trapping around Margaret Lake, reported finding large cache of mining equipment and ammunition cached near the Bonnetplume River.1)
Aaron Knorr’s story is fictionalized in Delores Brown’s book Bonnetplume Gold.2) The Bonnetplume River is named for Andrew Flett Bonnetplume and the Knorr range of mountains and Knorr Creek are named for Aaron Knorr.