Earnest Wilhelm "Henry" Bratnober

Henry Bratnober with his niece Agnes, daughter of Pauline Bratnober McArthur. Piedmont, California around 1900. Courtesy of Edna McArthur Medd.      Henry Bratnober may have been the most colorful character among the five Bratnober siblings. And, like the mountain named after him in Canada, we know he was a big man. His wife’s name was Ella and, unfortunately, we’ve found very little information about her. We are quite sure they had no children.
Henry was born on January 5, 1849, and so he was six when the family came to America and he was barely fifteen when we find that he enlisted in the Wisconsin 36th Regiment on the 25th of February, 1864, near the end of the Civil War. There is no indication in his military record that he saw action.      Apparently Henry took a keen interest in prospecting and mining in the wake of the American Gold Rush, which had already begun in the year that he was born back in Prussia. When the Bratnobers first arrived in Hazel Green, Wisconsin in 1854 they had settled in one of the main lead mining regions in America. Henry was probably exposed to the harsh work of mining in these lead mines and after the war he went further West, like so many others, to seek his fortune.      It appears that he soon became far more successful than the average prospector. At first he lived in Helena and then in Marysville, Montana from about 1866 until 1880, when Augustus writes: "My brother Henry returned from Montana that spring. I had not seen him in fourteen years." Marysville was a boomtown near the much-storied Drumlummon Mine--an area that yielded nearly fifty million dollars worth of gold between 1880 and 1900. There	Henry Bratnober in Civil War uniform c. 1864. Courtesy of Edna McArthur Medd.
is plenty of lore on the Internet and in books today about this mine and about the nearby ghost town of Marysville. A young Irishman named Tom Cruse had found a huge ledge of gold after single-handedly (according to legend) digging a 500-foot tunnel into a hill by the spot in a river that showed signs of gold. Many parties, including two large mining companies that at least paid young Tom 1.6 million dollars to put down his shovel, then fought for shares of the original mine and of the surrounding region.
DrumLummon Mine near Marysville, Montana in 1890 (left) and in the year 2000 (right). Photos courtesy of the Montana Historical Society Photo Archives.

In 1885 Henry’s brother, Augustus, writes: "That fall I went to Montana to visit Henry at Marysville where he was superintendent of the Drum Lummon Mine." Henry was apparently a significant manager, if not a principal, but he obviously begins to prosper. Soon he is sending money back to the family, according to his brother, and Augustus begins to make investments in land, lumber, cattle, and even an unsuccessful venture into California banking--in apparent partnership with Henry.      We have no further indication of Henry’s whereabouts until an article appears in The Engineering and Mining Journal in October of 1897 by H. Bratnober called "The Klondike Gold Fields: A description of the placers and the conditions found by one who has just returned from Alaska." Henry had gone west and north.      In a recent history article by Geoffrey T. Bleakely for the National Park Service (web address: http://www.nps.gov/wrst/chisanamining.html) Henry Bratnober is clearly described as a mining pioneer among early American explorers of the Alaskan interior: "One of the first was Henry Bratnober, who examined part of the White River country in 1898. Jack Dalton arrived about the same time, building a cabin on upper Kletsan Creek. Although Dalton, like Hayes, found a considerable quantity of copper, the district's remoteness discouraged any thorough investigation." "The area's first meaningful mineral discovery occurred in 1902 when prospector Jack Horsfeld found gold on Beaver Creek, just west of the Canadian border. Yukon miners stampeded to the area, but most failed to locate workable ground and soon returned to Dawson City."      Henry proceeded to explore deeper into Alaska. It is apparent from the few books where he’s mentioned (such as the book recently discovered by Robert Bratnober, Yukon Places and Names, by R. Coutts) that Henry was not just riding a horse and watching others labor. There was probably little if any meaning to the word superintendent on such journeys. Coutts says simply that Bratnober was the "axe man" for famed surveyor Jack Dalton who was one of the first to map the Alaskan interior. One can imagine that Henry was literally wielding the axe and leading the way--with an eye out for signs of gold and other precious minerals. As Bleakely continues we learn that Henry really was the controversial character that we suspect he was, when Henry plays a gambit with the newspaper in Valdez as he returns from one of his journeys, apparently to dissuade others from following in his path. "Bratnober and Dalton explored the upper Tanana River region in 1903, using a pack-train to search for copper prospects. At the conclusion of their journey, however, Bratnober downplayed the district's mineral potential. His pessimistic forecast infuriated supporters of Valdez, which heavily depended on the mining trade. "This pot-bellied old reprobate," declared the Valdez News, "has no object in spreading these slanderous reports aside from the mere pleasure that some people take in lying." "The newspaper was apparently correct, as two years later Bratnober resumed his examination of the region. Building a 120-foot, gas-powered sternwheeler, which he christened Ella in honor of his wife, he journeyed up the Nabesna River and established winter quarters for a small group of affiliated prospectors, including George C. Wilson, James L. Galen, Draper C. "Bud" Sargent, and Carl F. Whitham. Although they located numerous copper prospects, Bratnober's crew discovered little gold. They did, however, find traces along Trail, Cooper, and Chavolda Creeks, all in or near the Chisana district."
Inside Henry Bratnobers home in Piedmont, California, known as the Gamble House, c. 1900. Courtesy of May Sorebo      Henry becomes sick in 1902 and Augustus goes to live with Henry and Ella briefly before he and Ida decide to start living permanently in Los Angeles themselves. The Bratnober brothers rent two houses in San Francisco for a few months near McNutts Hospital and Henry makes a full recovery. By 1904 Augustus reports that Henry has "interested a party of wealthy men to build a railroad into (the Valdez and White River) district (of Alaska), giving them an interest in his copper mine as an inducement." This was apparently Henry’s grandest venture and we suspect it may be the venture that cost him his fortune as well.      Augustus never mentions the huge railroad project again and by 1907 Henry’s financial fortunes seem to have changed for the worse, as happened so quickly in the mining boom or bust days. Augustus	Whatever the truth, Henry now establishes a mining company of his own and begins to reap a small fortune. In 1899 Augustus writes about visiting Henry in Piedmont, California-one of the most affluent early suburbs of San Francisco, across the San Francisco Bay and up in the hills above Oakland. Here Henry and Ella purchased the Gamble House, an historic mansion with a carriage house and seven acres. The house is long gone now. The land where it stood is both a park and a California Historic Site. The Piedmont Park & Recreation headquarters stands nearby with a marker about Gamble. We can only wonder at Augustus’s reasons for low key comments like "stopped to see my brother in Piedmont" without ever the slightest mention of the extraordinary life-style that his brother had apparently attained by the turn of the century. In early 1902 Augustus stops in to see Henry in Piedmont again: "About the middle of January we started south over the Southern Pacific Railroad, stopped at Piedmont but stayed only one night as brother Henry was not there, having not yet returned from Europe. I paid the interest due Henry on my loan to Ella, his wife, and promised to make them a longer visit on our return in April."
	Henry Bratnobers home in Piedmont, California, known as the Gamble House, c. 1900. Courtesy of May Sorebo. Click to enlarge.
reports that Henry sells his house in Piedmont in about this same year and soon Henry and Ella are living in Tacoma, Washington--apparently helping the John E. Bratnober family to manage that family’s growing lumber business and still making trips to Alaska as well. In 1914 Henry applies to the federal government for a small Civil War veteran’s pension. Was this a clear sign of great misfortune? We suspect that it was from the letters we have that Augustus wrote.

Henry Bratnober riding a camel, far right. The inscription on the back of the photo simply reads "Uncle Henry on one of his trips." Courtesy of May Sorebo.

Augustus writes ruefully in private letters to his sister Pauline in 1914 that his brother had "wasted half a million dollars" and Augustus generally does not paint a rosy picture in his several letters about Henry that we still have today. Whatever the actual events were, Henry and Ella Bratnober had surely lived remarkable lives and were authentic characters in the early American mining and railroad history of California, Montana, and Alaska.      Henry died suddenly on September 12, 1914 in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Livermore. His obituary (below--probably from a San Francisco newspaper

but the clipping we have has no indication) suggests loftier business associations than were probably wholly true--since so little is mentioned about him in the histories of the great mining regions that he explored compared to other major and even minor figures. But perhaps it is fitting and doubtless it contains truth about a man from very humble origins who had made a name and a considerable, if short-lived, fortune for himself in a business that was always characterized by harsh physical labor, luck, controversy, rumor, and exaggeration.

Henry is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California only about a mile from the park where his house once stood in Piedmont. Henry and Ella Bratnober, we are quite sure, did not have children. Alaska Highway, Yukon Territory, Canada - Milepost 940. From left to right: Mount Kelvin, an unnamed mountain and Mount Bratnober. Photo courtesy of Falke Bruinsma http://photos.innersource.com/page/45/12/225