Episode 5 - The News ... And a Ton of Gold ... Arrive Outside

Steamers from Alaska arrive in San Francisco and Seattle a day apart, full of Klondike miners with so much gold they have to stagger to the bank. With the economy in a funk, some sensational newspaper headlines spark a global gold rush!

The S.S. Excelsior and S.S. Portland carried miners with so much gold it would take a normal person a lifetime to earn. News spread fast by rail and telegram around the world, especially when boosted by Erastis Brainerd and the creative publicity machine whipped up by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

Listen to find out how gold fever raged across the continent, infecting thousands from farm boys from Ontario to bank managers in New York.

Sources & reading (some are out of print)

• Erastus Brainerd and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, by the National Parks Service

• GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! headline from Seattle Post-Intelligencer

• The Klondike Stampede by Tappan Adney

Maps

• Erastus Brainerd's newspaper map showing Seattle as the gateway to the Klondike, and somehow forgetting rival cities such as San Francisco and Vancouver

Image above in the public domain from Wikipedia Commons.