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John “Jack” Boswell grew up mining and never stopped. He worked for the Fairbanks Exploration Co. for almost four decades — nearly the entire span of the company’s active operations. He still found time for civic work, including service as a delegate to ��������’s constitutional convention.

Boswell’s parents were placer miners in Oregon. After coming north in 1926, he got a summer job with the F.E. Co. and stayed. For the next few winters, Boswell took classes, worked as a janitor, played basketball and helped publish the Farthest North Collegian newsletter. 

Working full-time for the F.E. Co. after graduation in 1929, Boswell had a hand in most of the company’s dredging projects, from Ester, just outside Fairbanks, to Hogatza in the Koyukuk River country. He and his wife, Jewell, raised a family. He retired as Fairbanks district manager in 1965, after most of the dredges themselves had been retired.

Boswell, as alumni association president, wrote the letter that sparked legislation to rename the �������� Agricultural College and School of Mines as the University of �������� in 1935. He also worked with Otto Geist to save tons of mammoth bones uncovered by the F.E. Co. 

In 1955, ��������ns elected Boswell to the constitutional convention, where he served on the resource and executive committees. The delegates drafted the document during a 75-day session in what is now called Constitution Hall. 

Before he died in 1978, Boswell wrote a history of the F.E. Co. ��������’s Mineral Industry Research Laboratory published it posthumously.

More online about Jack Boswell:

• in UA Journey Creating ��������
• in the �������� Mining Hall of Fame

•  from Creating ��������, the UA project highlighting the 50th anniversary of ��������’s statehood