page_title: Senator (1898 ship)
section_title: Nome Gold Rush (1900)
hierarchical_section_title: Senator (1898 ship) / Pacific Coast Steamship Company (1898 - 1916) / Nome Gold Rush (1900)
caption_attribution_description: English: Advertisement for the steamship Senator sailing from Seattle to Nome, Alaska. This particular graphic was run in the Seattle Daily Intelligencer on April 10, 1900, but identical ads were run on many other dates in other papers.
context_page_description: Senator was a steel-hulled steamship launched in 1898. She served as a troopship during the Spanish-American War and was an important part of the Nome gold rush. She spent thirty years in the coastwise shipping trade between Alaska and San Diego, until she was scrapped in Osaka, Japan in 1935.
context_section_description: Gold was discovered in Anvil Creek in Nome, Alaska in 1898.  By 1899 a full gold rush was underway.  When it was discovered that there was gold not just in the creek, but also in the beach sand for miles around Nome, thousands more rushed to West Coast ports so they could sail to the scene in Spring 1900.  Thus, within three weeks of Senator's return to her owners in February 1900, the Pacific Coast Steamship Company announced that the ship would sail from San Francisco to Nome via Seattle, Washington beginning in May, when the melting of the sea ice allowed navigation in the Bering Sea.
  In the meantime, the bunkbeds and other troopship furnishings were ripped out and Senator went into the Merchants dry dock in San Francisco for a general overhaul. After this quick trip to the shipyard, she sailed between San Francisco and Seattle as a freighter, carrying coal and general cargo.
  Her first trip to Nome was sold out, and she was not alone. An estimated 110 ships bound for Nome left Pacific ports in the Spring of 1900.  Senator sailed from San Francisco on May 14, 1900, with 161 passengers aboard.  She was one of five ships that headed north from that port on the 14th and 15th, which carried 1,161 passengers for Nome.  Several of these ships, including Senator, stopped in Seattle, picking up additional passengers and freight.  Senator sailed north from Seattle on May 20, 1890 with 440 passengers aboard.  Not all of them were miners.  Some were seeking their fortunes by serving the miners in the new boom town.  Senator's cargo included bar fixtures, buggies, and a complete printing plant to establish Alaska's first newspaper, the Nome Daily News.  In a real sense, Senator and the other ships sailing with her, were the Nome gold rush.
  The eagerness of the rushers to reach the gold fields had the ships sailing north at the earliest conceivable moment.  In the event, this proved too early as the sea ice had not retreated from Nome.  On June 5th, the ship was stopped by the ice 140 miles short of her destination.  Senator became stuck in the ice and her hull was dented, starting a leak.  She finally freed herself and back-tracked to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, making port on June 7, 1900.  Her second attempt was successful, and Senator was able to reach Nome on June 12, 1900.
  Only a small percentage of the gold rushers had any mining experience, so many of the men who were deposited on the beach at Nome had no idea how to find gold.  Whatever their expertise, since 1900 was a couple of years after the original discovery, many of the best locations had already been taken.  Some of the unskilled worked as laborers on other miners' claims, and as each new ship disembarked yet more men, wages fell.  The cost of living was high, and the living was rough.  Many had no shelter but a tent.  Winter came early in Nome and once the sea ice returned there would be no more food or hope of escape.  Consequently, Senator sailed back from Nome as fully booked as she was on the trip to the gold fields.  According to one report, the demand to leave Nome was so great that the fares were doubled on the return trip.  On one trip to Nome, the fare on Senator was $50 for a first class cabin and $25 for a second class, while on the return trip it was $100 and $85 respectively.  The ship made it back to Seattle from her first trip to Nome on July 3, 1900.  Senator made four more round trips between Seattle and Nome in 1900 before the sea ice closed in again.  She returned to Seattle from Nome for the last time in 1900 on November 3.  On her last four trips she brought back 1,058 passengers, most of whom had failed to make their fortunes.  A few had done very well, however, and the ship carried a reported $1,195,000 of gold dust and nuggets back from Alaska in 1900.
caption: Advertisement for Senator's first trip to Nome in 1900
exif: {}