Zimmerman Family Papers

This collection consists mainly of correspondence detailing the lives and activities of the Zimmerman family, especially J. Franklin Zimmerman and his sisters who were in Alaska, the Klondike, and the prairie provinces of Canada. Included is a 136 page diary by J. Franklin that details his journey with his friend Lawrence "Brunky" Weber from Skagway, Alaska, over the White Pass and then on to Dawson. The diary begins after they arrived at Fort Wrangel on February 14, 1898, and goes on to describe their traveling conditions, buying of supplies, customs rules, boat making on Tagish Lake, mining along the Dominion River, mining claims, and descriptions of the surrounding environment and towns.

J. Franklin Zimmerman had three sisters, Mary McCarty, Ella M. Chase, and Minnie Patterson, who followed him to the Klondike. Their letters to their mother, Mary Post Zimmerman, while illuminating the domestic and business lives of women in Alaska, the Klondike, and in the Canadian prairies provinces; also give accounts of their daily lives and the raising of their children.