The Eagle Point Storehouse Storehouse No. 4, in Hyder, Alaska One of Alaska’s most unusual contributions to the list of National Historic Places is a small stone storehouse on the U.S.-Canadian border between Stewart, British Columbia and Hyder, Alaska. One of four such storehouses built in the area in 1896, it is also one of the oldest stone and masonry buildings in Alaska.
Hyder is a small community, established in 1907 at the mouth of the Salmon River, near the head of Portland Canal. Rich gold and silver lodes discovered in the upper Salmon River basin led to Hyder becoming the primary access and supply point for the mines by 1917.
The area around Portland Canal was first explored in 1896 by Captain David du Bose Gaillard of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the American-Canadian Boundary Dispute. Captain Gaillard had been instrumental in the construction of the Panama Canal, being in charge of the central district of the Canal, designing and engineering the Gatun Dam and the notorious Culebra Cut through the backbone of the isthmus.
On August 17, 1896, during an increasingly heated dispute over the boundary between Alaska and Canada, when ownership of the Portland Canal was in contention, Captain Gaillard received orders from Washington, D.C. to build four masonry storehouses at the head of Portland Canal in southeastern Alaska, and to make a strategic military reconnaisance of the area. In Portland, Oregon the Captain requisitioned and fitted the lighthouse tender Manzanita, hired 22 civilian workers, secured all the supplies except masonry, and sailed north.
