The pit is now a museum where visitors can go underground and discover how miners have worked and lived over the last 200 years.
The Chinese miners lived and worked together.
Some 90 miners lived in Scranton, a few with families.
The once active village where the miners lived had a school, bakery, first aid medical centre and all the things needed to make life comfortable.
The miners lived a life of "bitter, terrible struggle".
At its peak in the 1940s, 13,000 miners, their families, and attendant merchants lived in the area.
As a result the miners lived in their own self regulated communities under English protection.
The miners lived in crude housing provided at low cost by the companies, and shopped in company stores.
In addition, when production begins, the miners won't even live at the mine but will make the 45-minute trip from Juneau each day by high-speed boat.
The system requires miners to live in men-only hostels, far from their families.