Biography
Al Nygren was one of twenty-five defendants tried on riot charges after the June 24, 1935 confrontation during the Alaska Juneau Gold Mine strike. Their joint trial began on November 12 before Judge George Alexander. Nygren testified that a prosecution witness named Beamer had told him he came to Juneau to break the strike and provoke an attack on the union hall. Nygren also described guns and ammunition in Beamer's room above the hall. All twenty-five defendants were acquitted.
Alex Hodoff's report in the January 1936 Labor Defender, page 14, describes the Juneau trial's identification procedure: at Prosecutor Holzheimer's request the court required the defendants to keep the same seats throughout the proceedings. It reports that Nygren testified to weapons and ammunition in Beamer's room and his threat to provoke another Centralia against the union hall. The issue reports all twenty-five defendants acquitted, without giving the verdict's exact date.
Daily Worker, December 24, 1935: Page 5’s captioned group photograph identifies him by surname among the Juneau union defendants recently freed after the riot trial arising from the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining Company strike. It supplies an identified portrait and corroborates release by December 24, but gives no exact release or verdict day and does not settle the conflicting December 14/15 accounts. The photograph also includes defense lawyers Goodman and Roden; they are not counted as defendants. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n309-NY-dec-24-DW-Q.pdf
Labor Defender, January 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 24, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Page 1 captions the same Juneau defendant group; the report explicitly dates the riot-trial acquittal to noon December 14, 1935 after twenty hours of deliberation. It describes Judge Alexander, prosecutors Holzheimer and Folta and defense lawyers Irvin Goodman and Henry Roden. The caption says twenty-five while the article says twenty-four; another existing report gives December 15, so these conflicts remain explicit rather than silently replacing established dates. No precise physical discharge day or completed custody interval follows from the verdict.
