Out Of The Shadows

Billy Wimbish - was born around 1859. A Black man who made his life in the Alaska Interior, Wimbish earnedrespect among the miners of the Fairbanks district. In 1906, he served as lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against mineowner D.H. Cascaden on Cleary Creek. Judge James Wickersham ruled in the miners' favor, finding Cascadenliable for all wages owed. That legal victory, won in Alaska Territory as a Black man against a white mine owner,defined the kind of man Wimbish was.Lloyd Magruder - was born in 1825 in Maryland, descended from a Scottish ancestor who arrived as a prisonerof war in 1653. He served in the Mexican War, rising from private to second lieutenant. After a stint in Californiapolitics representing Sacramento in the State Assembly, Magruder moved to Lewiston, Idaho Territory, in July1862. He built a mercantile store and a pack train operation in a frontier capital still called "Ragtown" for its canvastents. He had a wife named Caroline and three children.Idaho and Alaska. 1863 and 1910. T