"The city is of the most cosmopolitan type and contains representatives of almost every nationality on the globe: Germans, Canadians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, Poles, Chinese, negroes, Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Jews, and Americans. The dominant type is the American, through whose efforts, with that inherent talent of the Anglo-Saxon race for self-government, this isolated community at once organized a city government. Before the close of the summer Nome had a mayor, councilmen, a police force, a deputy United States marshal, a United States post-office, a fire department with town well, a board of health, a hospital corps, and charitable organizations. A majority of the people consists of the shifting population of the Yukon country, which, upon hearing the news of the discovery of gold, poured itself into Nome. … Along with the shifting population of the Yukon from Dawson and other camps came also many would-be explorers, adventurers, and especially gamblers, but good order prevails throughout. Drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and theft are promptly tried before the police justice and punished by fine and imprisonment. Copies of the official rules and regulations are kept posted before the city hall and in other conspicuous places, as a warning to all: 'Ignorance of the law is no excuse.' Some of the well-known 'toughs' and most undesirable characters are reported to have been rounded up by the authorities late in the fall and exported to the States. … There are several printing presses and three newspapers—the Nome News, Nome Herald, and Nome Gold Digger. … There are at least 2,500 people now [February, 1900] wintering at Nome, and, by estimate, at least several thousand are on their way there by winter routes. … "Since, according to the conservative estimate of those who are best situated to judge, it is believed that the Nome region will have a population of at least 30,000 or 40,000 people this year (1900), some public improvements there seem not only commendable but urgently necessary. Among these the most important are: Some municipal form of government, water supply, land-office service, and harbor facilities. As the General Government had never made provision for any form of municipal government in Alaska, the people of Nome, in response to the urgency of the hour, called a mass meeting, and organized the present government of Nome, with a complete corps of city officers, as aforesaid, though they were conscious at the time that it was without authority from the United States Government." _F. C. Schrader and A. H. Brooks, Preliminary Report on the Cape Nome Gold Region, Alaska (United States Geological Survey), pages 45-47._ {8} ALASKA: A. D. 1900. Civil Government.