Alaskan History
The Silent City Excerpted from the 1909 book,Through the Yukon and Alaska, by T. A. Rickard This is the story of a scientific fake. It was skilfully done, so that many were fooled for a long time. The perpetrator was Richard G. Willoughby, known to his friends as Dick and to the public as the Professor. He came to Alaska from South Carolina, where he had been a Methodist preacher. This was an avocation for which he was well fitted by the possession of a long white beard and a resonant voice. The Professor was a good talker and, among other accomplishments, he was a ventriloquist. When he left the South he went northwestward to the Cariboo and the Cassiar mining districts, and finally reached Juneau in 1881. In 1885 Dick Willoughby brought news to the people of Juneau that he had discovered a wonderful mirage; it was to be seen above the Muir glacier. He described the vision as that of a modern city, with church-towers, large buildings, vessels in the docks, and people moving in the streets. The wonderful mirage had been seen by him on several occasions, but especially on June 21, the longest day of the year, when the sunlight was particularly strong. This story was repeated by him at intervals on his return from various prospecting expeditions, until 1889, when a sensation was caused by the statement that he had actually succeeded in getting a photograph of the "silent city." Great was the excitement at Juneau and throughout southeastern Alaska. An association of local men was formed at Juneau for the purpose of exploiting the discovery and of selling the prints struck off Willoughby's wonderful negative. It was
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