Klondike Gold Rush begins on July 17, 1897.

  • By Greg Lange
  • Posted 1/15/1999
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 699
On July 17, 1897, at 6 a.m., the steamship Portland arrives in Seattle from Alaska with 68 miners and a cargo of "more than a ton of solid gold" from the banks of the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory. This marks the beginning of a massive rush to the goldfields of Canada, and a period of prosperity in King County that will last more than a dozen years.
Sources: James R. Warren and William R. McCoy, Highlights of Seattle's History Illustrated (Seattle: Historical Society of Seattle and King County, 1982), 23. See also Paul Dorpat, Seattle Now and Then [Volume 1] (Seattle: Tartu Publications, 1984), Story 25; Pierre Berton, The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 99-130.
Related Topics
Economics Maritime
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