Rosene, John (Sr.)

He was the father of John Rosene (Jr.) By 1901 Rosene, a Norwegian immigrant was one of the great successes of the Nome gold rush. His success came not from mining but from providing services to miners.

He and a group of investors founded the Northwest Commercial Company in 1898 to provide transportation to the Nome goldfields. The company expanded into trade and fishing and by 1906 it was worth $3 million.

He was a pioneer Siberia and Russian shipping man who founded the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1900. By the summer of 1902 Rosene was a major investor in and president of the Northeast Siberia Company.

He began immediately to organize teams of prospectors to go to Chukotka.

In 1910 a dream of financier John Rosene and a group of surveyors to push the Alaska Midland Railroad from Haines to Fairbanks.

In 1911, Rosene studied the Swiss monorail system at Brennan for a design to build spurs for the Porcupine and Rainy Hollow District on his railroad.

He thought the monorail system could even be used across the pass. In the fall of 1911, the survey team of John Rosene, H.R. Robbins, H.P.M. Birkinbine, Steve Sheldon, and Gus Klaney returned to Haines, and Rosene reported that "the building of a railroad through this territory would be an easy undertaking." Much of the route could be laid on a straight line with little grade. But the crew encountered stretches of tangled brush that had to be cleared by hand. His business ventures were mainly in shipping, railroad construction and fisheries, in Seattle, Alaska, and the Siberian peninsula.

He was connected with the Alaska Midland Railway Company, North Eastern Siberian Co., 1902-1910; and Northern Exploration & Development Company, 1910-1911.