The strike sparked the Juneau gold rush which resulted in the development of many placer and lode mines.

Mining the Treadwell site began by sluicing residual placers over the lode deposits.

In the mid-1910s, with 960 stamps grinding ore and tunnels reaching as far as 2,400 feet (730 m) below the surface and extending under the sea, Treadwell was one of the most technologically advanced mines of its day.

After years of losses and labor problems, the mine became profitable in the mid-1920s: with 600 workers it was setting production records.

[3] Economic pressures of WWII lead to the closure of the AJ in 1944; this was the end of the dominance of mining in the Juneau economy.

[4] Although those two mines are long-since closed, as late as 2010 one of the hydropower plants built to power the AJ was still in use.

[5] Fires and time have destroyed most traces of the Treadwell complex; the AJ mine buildings were burned by vandals and little can be seen by visitors these days because of the growth of alders.

[8] He was responsible for initiating low-grade gold mining in Alaska adopting most advanced operations on a big scale, which boosted the economy of the wilderness areas.

However World War II, the inflation that followed and a fixed price for gold could not sustain their operations and they closed their mines in 1944.

A consortium led by John Treadwell, a carpenter from California, purchased the claims and adjoining gold-bearing land.

The underground Kensington hardrock mine is approximately 45 miles (72 km) north of Juneau.

The proposed mine, access roads, and tailings disposal areas are located on federal land overseen by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), State of Alaska tidelands, and on private patented property.

In 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a 6–3 decision[13] which ruled that the United States Army Corps of Engineers had properly issued a permit allowing mine slurry, crushed rock mixed with water, to be discharged as "fill" into Lower Slate Lake, a 23-acre (93,000 m2) lake with a maximum depth of 50 feet (15 m).

Enlargement of the lake will produce additional wetlands, at least according to the majority opinion in the Supreme Court case.

Environmental groups maintain that this decision was made possible by an administrative rule change made by the Bush administration:The Clean Water Act allows "fill material" to be put into waters for constructive purposes such as the creation of levees, seawalls, and the like, under permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the Kensington Mine case, the Bush administration expanded its interpretation of the rule, through an informal EPA memo that was never subject to public notice or comment, to allow dumping of toxic, industrial wastewater slurries directly into lakes and other water bodies, a practice that had long been prohibited by EPA rules.

1310, amending the Clean Air Act sponsored by Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Dave Reichert (R-WA) and 151 cosponsors.