text: By 1905, Birch had successfully defended the legal challenges to his property and he began the search for capital to develop the area.  On June 28, 1906, he entered into "an amalgamation" with the Daniel Guggenheim and J.P. Morgan & Co., known as the Alaska Syndicate, eventually securing over $30 million.  The capital was to be used for constructing a railway, a steamship line, and development of the mines.  In Nov. 1906, the Alaska Syndicate bought a 40 percent interest in the Bonanza Mine from the Alaska Copper and Coal Company and a 46.2 percent interest in the railroad plans of John Rosene's Northwestern Commercial Company.
  Political battles over the mining and subsequent railroad were fought in the office of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt between conservationists and those having a financial interest in the copper.
  The Alaska Syndicate traded its Wrangell Mountains Mines assets for shares in the Kennecott Copper Corporation, a "new public company" formed on April 29, 1915.  A similar transaction followed with the CR&NW railway and the Alaska Steamship Company.  Birch was the managing partner for the Alaska operation.
  Kennecott Mines was named after the Kennicott Glacier in the valley below.  The geologist Oscar Rohn named the glacier after Robert Kennicott during the 1899 US Army Abercrombie Survey.  A "clerical error" resulted in the substitution of an "e" for the "i", supposedly by Stephen Birch himself.