Mayo Mining Recorder's Office
Mayo Mining Recorder's Office
Cultural History
Cultural History
Before the establishment of the Mining Recorder’s Office in the Mayo area, miners were forced to either work the claim without staking it or had to make their way to Dawson to record it there.
The first Mining Recorder’s Office in the area was established on Clear Creek (circa 86km west of Mayo) in 1901. The next year, with increased prospecting and mining activity in the region, offices were opened at Gordon Landing (above Mayo on the Stewart River) and at Minto Bridge (on the Mayo River 14km North of Mayo). It was decided that a town should be established in the area to accommodate the growing population and, in 1903, Raoul Rinfret, Joseph Edward Beliveau and John Dease Bell surveyed the Mayo townsite. The site was close to the workings at Duncan Creek and at a point on the Stewart River where steamboats could dock.
The Minto Bridge office was moved to Mayo Landing in 1914, but was not named the Mayo Landing Mining Recorder's Office until 1918. When Louis Bouvette made a rich silver discovery on Keno Hill in 1919, the office had been shut down and his recorded claim was taken by J.E. Ferrell, who owned a store in Mayo and doubled as Mining Recorder. The ensuing stampede to Keno Hill made it necessary to reinstate the Mining Recorder's Office and, in 1920, the district became known as the Mayo Mining District. The town was called Mayo Landing until the name was officially shortened to Mayo in 1958.
Sam Blackmore built the extant office building in 1921. It was the first purpose built Mining Recorder's office in Mayo and was used for this purpose until 1933, when the office moved to another building. Richard L. "Dick" Gillespie was the first Mining Recorder in the Mayo area.[34]
Samuel Blackmore began prospecting in the area in 1902 and was a teamster through the 1920s. Grant Huffman, Mark Evans, Sam Blackmore and Louie Bouvette owned adjacent claims on the Silver King (the first operating silver mine in the Mayo district) in 1913.34 The men helped each other out and were friendly. Huffman's claim was called the "Mable".
Grant Huffman and his wife Emma Jimmy had a daughter, Mable (McIntyre), born in Mayo in 1912. She and her brother Albert were sent to the Mooseheart School in Chicago. They returned to Mayo in the mid-1920s and lived on their father’s homestead at the foot of Mayo Canyon. She was married to Gordon McIntyre from 1937 to 1954 and kept his last name after they divorced.[36]
As her father and Sam Blackmore were friends, it is very likely Blackmore knew Mable from birth and, having no family of his own, bequeathed the cabin to Mable.[37]
In 1948, Mable McIntyre rented her cabin out for use as the high school.37 The building was also used as an annex to Ruth’s Novelty Shop at one time.
Mable worked at the Kino and Binet Hotels and was appointed Postmaster in 1942 and held the job for 30 years.38 She lived in the cabin from 1946 until 1981. She died while on holiday in Vancouver in 1986.[40]
Citations:
34: Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, Gold and Galena: A History of the Mayo District. Mayo Historical Society. Mayo, Yukon. 1990: pp 56, 57, 379
35: Dr. Aaro Aho, Hills of Silver (Whitehorse: Lost Moose Publishing, 2006), p. 71.
36: Personal communication, Angus McIntryre to Rob Ingram, 22 March 2023..
37: Mayo Historical Society, Gold and Galena (Mayo: Mayo Historical Society, 1990), p. 344.
38: Ibid. p. 135.
39: Ibid. p. 204.
40: Ibid. p. 420.
