Carl Sandburg's first paid job was with the real estate firm of Callender and Rodine. Their office was on the second floor of a building at 231 East Main Street. Carl was eleven years old. Mr. Callender paid him a quarter (equal to $6.77 in today's money) a week to sweep out the office and clean the spittoons.

 

William H. Callender was born on a farm in Cornwall Township, Henry County, on New Year's Day, 1865. His parents, Isaac and Sarah Callender, were descendants of Kentucky farmers. He attended Galesburg High School and Knox College. Grace Packard became his wife and they had one daughter Lillian. Sandburg described him as a heavy set man with a large blond mustache.

 

Clause Rodine was born in Sweden in 1869 and was brought to America by his parents when he was five years old. By the 1880s he was operating a drugstore in Kearney, Nebraska. Rodine returned to Galesburg about 1887 and became a real estate agent. Shortly thereafter the Callender and Rodine partnership was formed. Sandburg observed that Rodine attended to the Swedish customers and Callender took care of the Irish and Germans

 

Claus Rodine caught gold fever when the Yukon gold strike was reported in Alaska Territory in 1896. He joined the Alaska Mining and Developing Company when it was formed in Galesburg. It consisted of twenty-five men and one woman (Dr.  J.M. Hewitt insisted on bringing his wife.).

 

The group raised $15,000 (equal to more than $438,000 in today's money) to buy supplies and transport them to Alaska. A  seventy-five foot sidewheeler steamboat and several smaller craft, to be assembled, in Alaska, were included. They knew the prices  of food and equipment were be unreasonably high in the mining area.

 

The mining group left Galesburg April 25, 1898, on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad heading west. About the same time, Company C, Illinois Volunteer Militia (Illinois National Guard) left Galesburg going east for service in the Spanish-American War. Carl Sandburg was a private in the company.

 

Subsequently, the Alaska Mining Company group landed in Alaska with their 65,000 pounds of provisions and proceeded to the Nome Mining District. They spent the winter near the Artic Circle, but didn't find much gold. They suffered temperatures as low as sixty-five degrees below zero. There was dissention among the members because of the meager results. Some of the men felt they should have enlisted in the army. At least, they would not have lost so much money.

 

Today there is a geological feature in the Nome Mining District known as the Rodine fault line. The land was assayed in 1992 by a mining company and revealed .03 ounces of gold per ton. The soil also contained arsenic and antimony as well as quartz.

 

W.H. Callendar continued to sell real estate and insurance until his retirement. He died December 10, 1949, and was buried in Linwood Cemetery with his parents, wife and daughter. Claus Rodine died on the Bering Sea in 1919. He had made his part-time home in Seattle with his wife, daughter and son.