“Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!” headlined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in July of 1897. “Sixty Eight Rich Men on Steamer Portland” arrived in Seattle with “Stacks of Yellow Metal.”
The news spread like California wildfire, and the Klondike Gold Rush began. In the following 10 days more than 1,500 people left for the Klondike. Within six months, approximately 100,000 gold-seekers steamed up Alaska’s Inside Passage and arrived in Dyea and Skagway, the base for two treacherous overland treks to the Klondike gold fields. Only 30,000 completed the trip; 4,000 or so found gold, and a few hundred struck it rich.
Many of the ones who did make a fortune were the merchants and profiteers who took advantage of the inexperienced miners, whom they referred to as “stampeders.” Long before the days of mass media, most of the ‘get-rich-quick’ miners knew virtually nothing about where they were going and the hardships that lay ahead of them. Pamphlets and newspapers contained little or no real information, but made outrageous claims of wealth, touting riverbeds of gold sitting there for the taking. Seattle served as jumping off point to the Yukon. Advertised as “outfitters of the gold fields,” merchants sold supplies, stocked 10 feet high on storefront boardwalks.
Driven by dreams of unfathomable riches, the first stampeders arrived in Skagway and found themselves confronted by a muddy settlement that was barely a collection of tents. They were also met by a swarm of con men, whose only interest was taking their money. The
