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Photo Album

Seattle, Washington 2007

Weekend trip from September 1st to 3rd, 2007 to Seattle, Washington including a day trip to the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon.

2007 September 1 2 3

Aquarium (130) Erica (29) Portland (157) Ruben (17) Seattle (387)

All

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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.
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Letter from Seattle Chamber of Commerce to U.S. governors and mayors requesting their estimates of potential Klondike participants. The letter also inquires about the local level of awareness of life in the goldfields, and which local media would be best for the Seattle Chamber of Commerce to advertise itself in.
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Testimonial identifying prospecting team leaders from the East Coasat and from England who choose to outfit large numbers of men in Seattle.
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Article by Erastus Brainerd explaining the obvious advantages to choosing Seattle as the best outfitting and departure port. The city is a major manufacturing center; terminus for three transcontinental railroads; deepwater seaport; experience in outfitting miners.
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Assaying Assaying is the process of analyzing ore and judging its metallic content and hence its worth. The most common and reliable method is fire assaying. Variations of this method were developed in ancient times. Fire assaying was used during the gold rush and the method is still used today. By 1902 the Seattle assay office had cleared $174 million in gold. Declining gold deposits led to its closure in 1935.
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These items were used in Seattle as part of the process to assay gold. 1. Crucibles A sample of gold is melted by heating it to very high temperatures in a crucible. 2. Tongs The hot crucible is carefully removed with tongs from the oven. 3. Furnace Muffle 4. King Mold A conical piece of gold, called a "King," is formed by pouring the melted gold into a King Mold. The King is used in the rest of the assaying process.
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On the right the furnace muffle can be seen.
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Gold bar seal rubbing.
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A typical price for a trip by steamer to Dyea, Alaska in 1898 was $25 - the equivalent of $550 in 2005 dollars.
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Advertisement in the paper for a trip with the steamship "Utopia" from Seattle to Skaguay and Dyea.
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Model of a ticket booth for the journey to Alaska.
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Seattle Supplies the Stampeders It is estimated that 70 percent of the Klondike Gold Rush's 100,000 participants passed through Seattle. As a result, businesses of all kinds boomed, invigorating the long stagnant economy. Entrepreneurs produced and sold a wide range of Klondike products - some useful, some not. A number of stores offered complete Klondike outfits.
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Routes to the Klondike Once outfitted, stampeders had to transport themselves and their gear to the Klondike - over 1,200 miles as the crow flies and much longer by the means available. Three main routes predominated: by water, by water and land, and overland through Canada.
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Routes to the Klondike Water and Land Route The vast majority of stampeders traveled by steamer from the West Coast up the Inside Passage to one of several Alaskan communities and then proceeded overland to the Yukon. Most went to Skagway or Dyea. From there they crossed the Coast Range on foot before navigating the upper reaches of the Yukon River to Dawson City. A few traveled from Haines over the Dalton Trail. Still others traveled up the Shikine River from Wrangoll. The so-called "All American" route out of Valdez required crossing miles and miles of uncharted glaciers.
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There was also an All-Land-Route which I can not anymore on this photo.
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All-Water Route This route was physically the least difficult and the most expensive. Because of this, it became known as the "Rich Man's Route." An ocean-going steamer took stampeders to St. Michael, Alaska near the mouth of the Yukon River. There, stampeders transferred to riverboats and continued their journey up the Yukon River to Dawson City. Most stampeders who took this route during the first fall of the gold rush were stranded en route when the Yukon River froze for the winter. It was not for six months, when then the river thawed, that the trip to Dawson could by completed.
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