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Album: Seattle, Washington 2007
Image: 433 / 545
Date: 2007-09-03 10:15:34
Tags: Seattle

Marketing Magic

A successful advertising campaign brought thousands of fortune-seekers through Seattle on their way to the Klondike. Seattle businesses responded and the city's economy came alive.

Reastus Brainerd

On August 30, 1897, the Chamber of Commerce established the Bureau of Information to promote Seattle as the gateway to the Klondike and to counter the efforts of other West Coast cities. Erastus Brainerd was chosen to lead the group. He took on his new role with energy and zeal.

He promoted Seattle as the only place to outfit for the Klondike. He placed ads in newspapers across the country. He had The Seattle Post-Intelligencer print 115,000 copies of a "Special Klondike Edition" and sent copies to postmasters, newspaper editors, librarians, mayors, town council members, and railroad employees throughout the country.

He asked local citizens to write letters to friends back east, touting Seattle. In an era before radio, television, or internet, he tracked newspaper coverage all across the country and quickly countered any negative press with a prompt "Letter to the Editor."

From Nuggets to Dollars

For six months, Brainerd successfully promoted Seattle. In March of 1898 he took on a new challange - lobbying in Washington D.C. for creation of an assay office in Seattle. An assay office converts prospectors' gold into cash. The Seattle Chamber of Commerce reasoned that an assay office in Seattle would encourage returning miners to spend more of their money in the city, further adding to local prosperity.

Brainard's efforts paid off and in June 1898 Congress passed a bill establishing an assay office in Seattle. In a two-story concrete structure on the edge of downtown, the government office took over $1 million in gold on its first day.