Image

Album: Seattle, Washington 2007
Image: 494 / 545
Date: 2007-09-03 11:15:08
Tags: Seattle

Boom Town

When the whispers of the gold rush started, Joseph Ladue, who operated a small lumber mill on the Yukon River, foresaw that there was wealth to be made supplying the stampeders. He quickly planned a townsite on the swamp where the Klondike River joined the Yukon. The cabin he built was the first structure in Dawson City.

By April 1897, even before the news of the SS Portland's arrival in Seattle had shaken the world, Dawson City had about 1,500 inhabitants. At the peak of the gold rush, Dawson's boom town population was estimated at between thirty and fifty-thousand people.

Life in Dawson

Business, industry, and government responded quickly to supply an overnight city. Even in this remote location, Dawson City soon boasted a telephone system, running water, steam heat, electricity, dozens of hotels, motion pictures theaters, a hospital, restaurants and, of course, a number of bars and dance halls.

Compared with Skagway and Dyea, where law enforcement was absent and crime was rampant, Dawson City and the Canadian territories were markedly safer. This was due to the presence and hard work of the Northwest Mounted Police.

Dawson City was no utopia, though. There was no sewer system or means of garbage disposal. By midsummer 1898, the city was a reeking swamp. Malaria, typhoid, and dysentery swept through the city. Due to the poor diets of many stampeders, scurvy was common.

Life on the Gold Fields

Those in the gold fields worked long and backbreaking hours panning, digging sluicing, and rocking to process gravel in search of gold. Most miners lived in exceedingly primitive conditions in small shacks and make-shift cabins with only the bare necessities. Some with successful claims, however, began building larger and more elaborate dwellings, re-creating the civilization they had left behind.