Gold was first discovered in the Klondike on August 17, 1896. The first discovery of gold on Gold Run Creek occurred in February of 1898 when Billy Leake, Robert Ennis and his brother David Ennis set up camp at the mouth of the creek. The Ennis brothers continued to mine on Gold Run Creek for many years.
The early mining on the creek was by hand, using the traditional drift mining method. One of the early miners on the creek left the Yukon in 1899 with $13,000. His name was John W. Nordstrom, and he used the money to establish what became one of the largest retail chains in the United States. The first steam equipment was introduced to the creek one year later, and soon most of the mining operations on the creek were using boilers to generate steam to operate pumps and winches and thaw the frozen muck. The demand for firewood consumed thousands of cords of wood each year. When the government road was completed to Gold Run by November of 1899, easier transportation made the creek more profitable, and the population exploded. By 1900, 699 people were reported to be living and working there.
Gold Run and adjacent Dominion Creek continued to be worked by hand methods (shafts and drifts) until about 1911, when most of the claims were acquired by Yukon Gold Company (YGC). Dredging was first conducted on Gold Run Creek by the Yukon Gold Company (YGC), which later became Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation (YCGC). YGC dredge #6 on Gold Run Creek mined 6 to 7 million cubic yards between 1913 and 1922, recovering approximately 70,000 fine ounces.
Options were taken by the Murphy Brothers of Portland, Oregon, on most of the claims on Gold Run Creek in 1940. They prospected a large part of the creek, at first sinking shafts, and later by prospect drilling. However, by 1941 the options had been dropped. A proposal to develop the entire Gold Run block of claims owned by Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation (YCGC) in 1942 was not adopted, and the lower ground was allowed to come open in 1974. The lower Gold Run ground in the Dominion Creek valley was then staked by Consolidated Mines (Yukon) Ltd. and optioned by Territorial Gold Placers.
In 1978, YCGC was absorbed by Teck Corporation who proceeded with infill drilling on Gold Run Creek to verify earlier drill results and to determine values in the dredge tailings. The dredge tailings were subsequently re-mined by Teck, and the unmined right and left limit portions of lower Gold Run Creek were also mined from 1997 to 2000.
Mary-Ange Resources Ltd. acquired the Teck ground in 2001 and mined until 2005. They describe that early dredging by YCGC had very little pre-stripping, resulting in 30 to 45 feet high faces during dredging. As the dredge dug the face, large slough-ins would occur, pushing pay gravels under the bucket chain, and that pay gravel was thus lost to the dredge. In addition, the frozen ground during that time was not thawed correctly; any frozen ground could not be dug out and as a result up to 15% of the pay gravel was not recoverable at the time. These gravels were the main pay material for Mary Ange Resources Ltd.
Gold Run Creek has consistently been one of the top ten producing creeks annually in the Yukon since placer mining began there early in Klondike history. Detailed information on gold production has been documented from many sources. A total of 292,540 crude ounces have been well-documented from Gold Run Creek. As royalty records consistently under-report the actual gold production of any one creek, there is likely to be well over 300,000 crude ounces of placer gold produced to date on Gold Run Creek.
