 Late-comers tried to "jump" the claims of the Pioneer Mining Company by filing mining claims over the same ground.A federal judge ruled that the Pioneer Mining Company claims were valid, but some of the claim jumpers gave partial interests in their claims to Washington politicians, including Alexander McKenzie, who engineered the naming of their own federal judge in the District of Alaska, Arthur Noyes (1854-1915).Noyes handed the Pioneer claims over to the claim jumpers.