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It
had been a terrible trip.
At about 4 p.m., August 26, 1901, Captain E.T Batnett
found himself and 130 tons of trade goods being removed
from the decks of the steamer LaVelle Young and
deposited on the bank of the Chena River. This journey,
which had begun the summer of 1897, was problem-filled
from the start. Fire, fog and stormy seas made the ship
carrying Barnette north from Seattle late. The boat
that was to take him up the Yukon River to the Klondike
goldfields left the dock at St. Michale's on the west
coast of Alaska 5 hours before he arrived in port. The
next steamer he boarded was almost swamped in rough
water, had a fire on deck and lost power because a steam
pipe exploded. In 1901 Barnette bought his own boat,
the Arctic Boy, but one of the crew members ripped out
the bottom of the Arctic Boy by diving it over a rock.
After his boat sank, Barnette contracted with Capt.
Adams of the LaVelle Young to haul him and his
goods up the Tanana River to the present day site of
Tanacross where he was going to build a trading post.
When the Tanana proved too shallow, Barnette talked
Adams into trying a "short cut" up the Chena
River. The water level here was also too low, and Capt.
Barnette ended up on the south bank of the Chenna, 200
miles downstream from Tanacross, building a cabin.
Felix
Pedro's Luck had been no better the E.T. Barnette's.
While the Klondike Gold Rush inundated the Yukon, Pedro
was prospecting the hills around Alaska's Tanana Valley.
In 1898, trying to reach Circle City but lost and almost
out of food, Pedro stumbled onto the richest gold-bearing
creek he had ever seen. He and his partner marked the
creek and continued to Circle City to earn some money
and buy supplies. Although he searched for years, Pedro
never found his way back to Lost Creek.
The
years after finding and loosing that creek,
Felix Pedro and Tom Gilmore were in the hills searching
other creeks for gold. Once again out of food and physically
exhausted, they began the 165- mile trek back to Circle
City on August 26, 1901. From the top of a hill Pedro
saw smoke from the LaVelle Young. He and his
partner headed toward the steamboat, hoping the men
on board had extra food to sell.
Upon
Seeing the miners and learning that there were
other prospectors in the area, Barnette decided to operate
a trading post from this site until he could move his
goods to Tanacross. This small settlement would become
the city of Fairbanks.
On
July 22, 1902, Felix Pedro struck gold in a
creek 12 miles north of E.T. Barnette's settlement on
the Chena River. Barnette abandoned the idea of moving
his trading post to Tanacross.
Earlier
that year, Barnette had promised Federal Judge
James Wickersham that he's name his trading post "Fairbanks"
in honor of Charles Fairbanks, the Republican senator
from Indiana, a man that the judge greatly admired.
In return, Wickersham, the most powerful government
official in 300,000 square miles, promised to do all
he could to help Barnette succeed. In April of 1903,
the judge decided to build his government offices in
Fairbanks. By November of that year, Fairbanks was incorporated
into a city and Barnette was elected as the first Mayor.
By
1905 gold production had risen to $6,000,000
per year and Fairbanks was home to over a thousand people.
It had a power plant, electricity and sewer service,
a school , police and fire protection, a hospital, a
three-story "skyscraper," saloons, stores
and a thriving "Red Light" district.
Early
Fairbanks survived food shortages in the winters
of 1902 and 1903, a flood in 1905 and a fire that wiped
out downtown in 1906. The pioneer spirit and determination
of Fairbanks' settlers rebuilt the city, making it stronger
each time. Fairbanks' citizens still have that same
pioneer spirit today.
On
With The Tour!
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