the Klondike

As scarce as born-and-bred Washingtonians have become in Seattle, it still can’t compare to the Klondike gold rush days, when hardly anyone was from here.

Seattle has ties to Alaska going back to 1897, when the city made itself the hub for fortune seekers setting off for the Klondike gold rush, at the same time making us the premier business city in the Northwest.

“It’s like being in the Klondike now,” says Dalhousie ecologist Hugh MacIntyre, referring to the gold rush that brought prospectors to remote northwestern Canada in the 1890s.

Among its notables were Old West lawman Wyatt Earp, who served as temporary marshal for 10 days while he traveled to the Klondike, and naturist John Muir.

According to HistoryLink, the online site compiling Washington history, “Bartell took a breather from his pharmacy in 1897 to join the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon. But he returned to Seattle in 1898, and late in the year opened a new drugstore, named Bartell’s Owl Drug Store, at 506 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle. In 1904 the Bartell Drug Company was incorporated, and later that year Bartell opened a second drugstore downtown which became known as the Red Cross Annex.”