Vangilder, Abram Wiley 1856 - 1930

VANGILDER

Posted By: Maud Gunn (email)
Date: 2/24/2003 at 16:21:05

A. W. Vangilder
from the Kellogg Evening News

One of the early day gold rush miners to the Coeur d'Alenes was the late A.W. Vangilder. Born in Illinois he went to Colorado as a young man and engaged in prospecting and mining. He joined in the gold rush to the Pritchard creek diggings in 1884 and spent some time working in the placers at Murray and Eagle. In 1885, the year the Bunker Hill was discovered, he came over from the gold camp, saw the possibilities of the Bunker Hill making a permanent camp and looked about for a suitable piece of land on which he could place the homestead. The mouth of Montgomery Gulch attracted his attention and although covered with timber, he saw that the wide flat would make an ideal truck farm and promptly made homestead application.

He cleared the land and for more than 30 years supplied the miners with fresh vegetables, accumulating a comfortable fortune. Mr. Vangilder built the first log cabin in Wardner and was interested in a number of mining enterprises in that part of the district. In 1898, he joined in the gold rush to the Klondike and spent five years in the north. He died in 1930 at the age of 74 years.

The body of A.W. Vangilder is expected to arrive here tonight from Nebraska and will be received at the Thornhill undertaking rooms. Mr. Van Gilder died while enroute east by auto to spend the winter. He was a pioneer resident of this district arriving in Wardner in the fall of 1885 a few days after the Bunker Hill mine was discovered by Noah Kellogg and Phil O'Rourke both of whom were personal friends of Mr. Van Gilder.