HARD DRIVE TO THE KLONDIKE:
PROMOTING SEATTLE DURING THE GOLD RUSH

A Historic Resource Study for the Seattle Unit of the
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

Competition Among Cities: Portland

Portland had numerous advantages in the battle for the Klondike trade: a strong, stable financial foundation and extensive rail connections and port facilities. With approximately 60,000 residents, Portland also boasted a higher population than Seattle -- a distinction it retained even after the gold rush. In September of 1897, Portland's business leaders organized an advertising campaign that resembled Brainerd's plan. It included providing maps, pamphlets, and circulars to railroads and prominent eastern publications. W.A. Mears, one of the primary forces behind this campaign, assured fellow businessmen that success in this venture would require extraordinary contributions. "You will have yourself to thank," he warned them, "if you see Seattle go ahead with a bound and distance this city in wealth and population." [53]

The Seattle Chamber of Commerce did not take this threat lightly. As Brainerd explained, "Portland will not do this by halves." Clearly he viewed the city as a rival, asking "Is it likely that Portland with its great aggregated corporate and individual wealth will fail to spend money like water when it thinks that a failure [to do so] will help Seattle?" [54] A large advertisement for Portland appeared in the New York Journal in December of 1897, prompting Brainerd to respond with an advertisement of his own. [55]

The Klondike Gold Rush indeed brought profit to Portland's merchants. From 1896 to 1898, more than 300 new businesses incorporated in Oregon -- and 136 of them were mining-related enterprises. Henry Wemme exemplified a Portland businessman who capitalized on the Klondike stampede by establishing "an immense business in selling tents." [56]

For all this success, however, the Webfoot City, as newspapers called it, did not succeed in wresting much of the business from Seattle. Portland was farther from the gold fields than the Puget Sound cities, and it did not have the frequent shipping service to the Far North that Seattle offered. As a number of historians have pointed out, Portland was established earlier than Seattle, and the older city retained a conservative, complacent character that contrasted with the energy of Seattle promoters. Jonas A. Jonasson, for example, explained in a comparison of Portland in Seattle that "Seattle's favored location on Puget Sound and the vigor of the famous 'Seattle Spirit' that saw its opportunity and took advantage of it was an unbeatable combination." [57]

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