Luman Van Valkenburg
Luman Van Valkenburg (also recorded as Lyman G. Van Valkenburg) was a Sumas, Washington, prospector who co-located the Lone Jack gold claim near Mount Baker in August 1897 with Jack Post and Russ Lambert, sharing in its $50,000 sale a year later.
Biography
Luman Van Valkenburg — his first name is also recorded as Lyman, and the surname appears in several spellings — was a resident of the border town of Sumas, Washington, in the 1890s, described in accounts of the day as one of its respected citizens. In August 1897 he joined the veteran prospector Jack Post and fellow townsman Russ Lambert on a prospecting trip into the high country near Mount Baker.
On that trip the party located the Lone Jack claim above Silesia Creek, a quartz ledge showing free gold that proved to be the discovery strike of the Mount Baker gold rush. News of the find drew hundreds of miners into the North Cascades, and within a year the three partners sold the property to the Mount Baker Mining Company of Portland, Oregon, for $50,000 — a substantial fortune for the time.
Like many figures who surface briefly in mining-camp annals, Van Valkenburg left little other trace in the historical record. His origins, later life, and dates of birth and death are not reliably documented, and he is remembered today through the founding story of the Lone Jack, the most celebrated mine of the Mount Baker district.