The Cordova daily times., 1918-07-05
TWENTY YEARS AFTER

Twenty long and eventful years have
passed since the great stampede to
the northland occurred, occasioned by
discoveries of gold mines of fabulous
wealth in the famous klondike. The
city of Seattle has been one OF the
chief beneficiaries of the discovery of
gold in the Yukon territory and in
Alaska. and the June number of the
Railway and Marine News. published
in that commercial center, has got
ten out special issue devoted almost
entirely to this subject, that is very
informing and interesting to those of
us who were among the original STAN
peders. 1t will likewise prove inform
ing to those who have come later.
Under the caption. Twenty Years
After" the Railway and Marine News
editorially says:
Looking back over the years that
have flown, Seattle is forced to
realization of the tremendous influence
upon its commercial development eX-
erted by the great gold rush of 1898
and several subsequent years. Then
the city was painfully emerging from
the sick bed of financial dependency
following the panic of 1898. In its
fight for municipal supremacy it was
Thanked on all sides by lusty competi-
tors. In volume of foreign trade, in
bank clearings. in .coastwise trade1
and in many other shOwings usually
made public by any city to emphasize
the list of Pacific ports. 1t had awak- |
cncd that July morning in 1897 to
lind that over night it had become !
famous; that in the twinkling of an
eye the unknown city was on the
tongue of the English speaking world |
that the mystical slogan, "A ton of
gold from the klondike" had wrought
the mighticst change and had given
the city. wholly unsOught, the most
productive campaign OF publicity that
any place striving for commercial su-
prcmacy had ever previously received.
And so. at the beginning of '9S. through
the summer and we'll into the fall,
the seekers of gold passed over the
trail stream of other gold not
mined from the frozen north, but taken
from the banks. the farmhouse kit
Chcns, the old chests in the cellars
OF remote habitatiOus scattered
throughout the globe While the ma
tive gold in all its splendor brought
into Seattle from Alaska with the re
turn of each ship. helped to. intens-
ify the excitement, it was the ten
times greater volume of minted gold,
with its accompaniment of good OLD
bank notes and silver pieces, left
in Seattlc's best hotel or shabbiest
saloon that laid the foundation for the
wonderful city of 1918, standinf first
On the Pacific coast in volume of
waterborn commerce. second in bank
cloarings. with the new era of ship
building and industrial progress in
place of the mad rush of twenty years
ago Then ships Of all sizes came
from other ports on the coast to make
their home at Seattle, and they never
changed their base. II was truly the
port of decrepit ships. of nondescript
craft, for everything that could carry
few hundred tons and a dozen or
more passengers, lying idle in water
ways from Mexico to British Colum-
bia, was pressed into service, with
the result that a weather-beaten and
battered armada continually moved
out of Seattle harbor on its way to
the north, and until each met lis fate
in its fight with the elemeats-as
most Of them did in subsequent years
each played its part in the unfold
ing Of that wonderful drama. All
glory to the dilapidated hulks of 1898,