The Klondike Gold Rush Gamble
A prospector returns from the North with a fortune only to be cleaned out at a downtown Seattle hotel.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Albert M. Stockman, a recent arrival from the Klondike, yesterday reported the loss of $1,050 in cash to Captain Sullivan of the police department. Stockman stated that after his arrival from Alaska on the steamer Dirigo, he immediately took a room at the St. Charles Hotel. The bills were in a belt about his waist. He rose early the next morning and started for a clothing store to purchase a suit of clothes. When he opened his belt, his money was missing. He also lost 73 ounces of gold, valued at $1,200, which he had in his trousers pocket. The latter was untouched.
“The bills were in a belt about his waist... When he opened his belt, his money was missing.”
This story captures the dark side of the Klondike Gold Rush era, where Seattle served as a boomtown of opportunity for some and a dangerous trap for others. The vulnerability of transient workers carrying life-savings in cash and gold remains a haunting parallel to today’s transient population and those who are targeted for theft in the city’s dense urban core.
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