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: Additional American Cities

A number of smaller cities on the West Coast attempted to secure some of the Klondike trade. Juneau, for instance, billed itself as "the metropolis of Alaska" and "the gateway to the interior gold fields." Its merchants argued that miners outfitting in their town would reduce or eliminate the cost of transporting freight to the Yukon, and they warned that outfits purchased in Seattle were stowed at the bottom of the ship's hold, where horses and mules stood over them for the duration of the trip to the Far North. [73] Juneau business interests also distributed circulars advertising Juneau on trains that ran between Seattle and Tacoma. [74]

Port Townsend similarly promoted itself as "the principal city on the west side of Puget Sound" and the port entry for the Puget Sound customs district. At the outset of the gold rush, some Port Townsend merchants recognized the need for "prompt interest and vigorous action." Seattle, they noted, had benefited from this approach. [75] "The Seattle papers," one observer pointed out in July of 1897, "are full of advertisements of business houses, giving lists of articles that should be purchased by intending Klondyke gold seekers.... It has been generally believed by them that Seattle was the only place where such goods can be procured." [76]

Port Townsend merchants, along with the Board of Trade, thus launched a relatively modest publicity campaign touting the advantages of their town. Advertisements described Port Townsend as "the principal city on the west side of Puget Sound" and the port entry for the Puget Sound customs district. Steamers bound for the Far North stopped at Port Townsend -- and its businesses offered goods from San Francisco "at the lowest possible rates." Promoters promised that miners who purchased their outfits at Port Townsend would enjoy the advantage of having their goods loaded last on the ship -- since this was the last port stop -- making them the first to be unloaded at the port of discharge in the Far North. The Board of Trade further suggested "that all Eastern parties who come through direct to Port Townsend will be so well pleased that they will all write to their friends to come here as the starting point for the great gold fields of the North." [77]

Without the rail connections that Seattle and Tacoma enjoyed, however, Port Townsend was not positioned to become the "starting point" to the Klondike. Moreover, with a population of only 3,600 residents in 1897, the town did not support the number of businesses that larger cities offered. [78] Although the gold rush renewed the determination of town residents to secure a rail link to Portland, it did not play a major role in the development of the community.

Similarly, Everett and Bellingham, for all their railroad and water connections, boasted fewer than 10,000 residents apiece -- and as historian Alexander Norbert MacDonald has indicated, "their smallness ruled them out as significant competitors." [79] They could not pursue the Klondike trade with the zeal, vigor, and resources that Seattle merchants brought to the enterprise. Newspapers in the Bellingham area, in fact, reported that the Klondike Gold Rush was not what it was "cracked up to be," and advertised placer mines in Whatcom County as rivaling those in the Yukon. [80]

Next> Vancouver and Victoria