Location on shelf: CS 32, B6
Completed by JD; 1/26/2009
NIELSEN COLLECTION. (Located in Small Collections File) Photos. 1 file folder in
.15 cu.ft. 1920s – 1940s.
B05.18 Inventory.

John Calvin Nielsen was born in Afognak, Alaska on April 22, 1907. His mother, Mary
Balue was a native of Alaska, and his father, John B. Nielsen emigrated from Denmark.
After Balue’s death in 1915, eight year old John traveled alone from Alaska to live with
relatives in Pottawattamie, Iowa. Educated through grammar school, at the age of
nineteen he returned to Alaska to work with his father on the Alaska railroad. He later
worked for Kennicott Mining Co. in the Wrangell Mountains. Nielsen joined the Army
Air Force in 1942. When his service time ended in 1945 he moved to California, and
lived in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1951, John married Fruma and worked for a
heating company in San Leandro for over twenty-one years before retiring. He died in
Redwood City, California on October 30, 1988.

The Nielsen Collection consists of one folder containing 12 photographs and two
postcards. The photographs are black and white and of various activities related to
mining, including a gold sluice box and high-powered hoses, and portraits of John Calvin
Nielsen and his parents. A postcard of the Red Dog Saloon is included, along with a
small art piece of the aurora borealis.

This collection was donated to the Anchorage Museum by Dolly Smith in 2005.


Location on shelf: CS 32, B6
Completed by JD; 1/26/2009
NIELSEN COLLECTION. (Located in Small Collections File) Photos. 1 file folder.
1920s – 1940s.

B05.18. Inventory.


INVENTORY

BOX 1/Folder 1 – Postcards and Photographs

Miscellaneous Items

B05.18.1
Written on back, “Northern Lights Alaska, Latouche 1920s”


Photographs

B05.18.2
Hydraulic gold mining area

B05.18.3
Man with cigarette in mouth works in sluice box. Hydraulic gold
mining in background

B05.18.4
Gold pan in sluice box
B05.18.5
Gold pan in sluice box with hydraulic gold mining in background.

B05.18.6
Side of building with cattle skull near window

B05.18.7
Hydraulic gold mining area

B05.18.8
Close up of hydraulic gold mining

B05.18.9
Hydraulic gold mining. Long sluice box in foreground.

B05.18.10
Close up of tailings from gold mining

B05.18.11

Location on shelf: CS 32, B6
Completed by JD; 1/26/2009
Unidentified man poses next to hose used for hydraulic gold
mining.

B05.18.12
Postcard. Interior view of “World Famous” Red Dog Saloon.
Juneau Alaska. Written on back, “Visit The Red Dog Saloon and
relive the Days of ’98. Sawdust on the floor; Antiques; Community
Singing and Entertainment. Gordon and Virginia Kanouse,
Owners.
B05.18.13
Hand colored photographs with oval cut mat on top
John Bernard Nielsen 1873-1938, Mary Balue Nielsen 1886 –
1915

B05.18.14
Black and white portrait of John Calvin Nielsen
Written on back, “John Calvin Nielsen. 4/22/07 – 10/30/88.
Museum accession # B03.21”