Yukon who is who

Charles Edwin Miller (1856 – 1930)

Charles Edwin Miller was born in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, to parents John and Eliza Andreas Miller. In the 1870s, Charles worked as a miner at Mauch Chunk in the Pennsylvania coalfields. He moved to Moosic in about 1876. Charles and Emma Jane Richmann were married at Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania, in 1878. In 1882, he operated a general store in Moosic, and later he became a building contractor but went bankrupt. Charles moved his family to Nemo, Tennessee in the early 1890s and operated a sawmill on the bank of the Emory River. The family moved to the Yukon in 1897.¹⁾ Captain Miller, as he was known locally, piloted four stern-wheel steamboats: Clara, Eldorado, Flying, and Reindeer.²⁾ Miller had to abandon the Reindeer when it sank above Five Finger Rapids. He camped in the area and discovered coal.³⁾

Miller owned three Yukon coal mines: Five Fingers, Tantalus, and Tantalus Butte. Tantanus Butte was initially discovered by George Carmack in 1893.⁴⁾ George Dawson first noted the occurrences of coal in 1887 at the Five Fingers and Tantalus mines, but the first actual mining was started by Miller at what became the Five Finger mine.⁵⁾

Emma Jane Miller was a partner with her husband in the coal properties near Carmacks. She and her husband owned and ran the nearby Roadhouse No.6, Tantalus Roadhouse.⁶⁾

One of Miller’s coal mine went into receivership in 1903.⁷⁾ In the spring of that year, a coal mine named “Hidden Treasure” was staked on the river at Carmacks in the name of Mrs. E. C. Miller. Two men were employed, and 24 tons of coal was shipped to Dawson.⁸⁾ Mrs. Miller’s two coal mines were 160 acre parcels located just above the police reserve.⁹⁾

In 1904, Miller shipped 370 tons of coal from Hidden Treasures.¹⁰⁾ Between 1907 and 1908, they sold at least fifty percent of the mine to Arthur B. Palmer. The mine was later sold to Isaac Staples. [Staples inherited the Tantalus Mine from the Macks.]¹¹⁾ Miller later prospected Tantalus Butte and it had the best prospects found up to 1910.¹²⁾ Miller applied to run a tunnel through his Tantalus Butte claim to the Eisenbeiser coal location and did considerable work in that direction in 1908. In 1910, both properties were owned by the Five Fingers Coal Co. with George J. Milton as General Manager.¹³⁾

Captain Miller was the first Yukoner to convert riverboat steamer wood-fired boilers to coal.¹⁴⁾ The steamer Canadian, Columbian, Casca and Bonanza King used coal for part of 1905 and the entire 1906 season. At the close of season some 60 tons was purchased from the Tantalus Coal Co. and used in furnaces and by others who said it gave first class results.¹⁵⁾

The Tantalus Coal Mine was shut down for the winter in September 1924. Capt. C.E. Miller, who was operating the mine, expected to travel to St. Paul during the winter with E. Schink of Dawson. They went in the interests of the Fiver Finger Coal Mine Company, the owners of the Tantalus Butte, Tantalus, and Five Finger coal mines.¹⁶⁾

Miller ruled his family by intimidation and implied violence. When Charles died alone at Dawson none of his three children attended the service. Charles apparently died penniless, having won and lost several fortunes, and the public administrator arranged for his burial. For thirty-three years Charles earned a living in the Yukon as a steamboat captain, sawmill operator, coal miner, gold prospector, restauranteur and hotelier.¹⁷⁾

Mount Miller was named in 1911 to memorialize C.E. Miller’s accomplishments.