From a story about Belinda Mulrooney....
It was a moment of hopeful desperation. When Belinda
Mulrooney arrived in the Klondike in 1897, legend has it that she tossed her
last half-dollar into the Yukon River and vowed that she would make her fortune
in the rugged land. She quickly made good on that vow.
Mulrooney’s success was due to her incredible foresight.
When she came to the Klondike she didn’t waste her time packing staples like
beans, bacon and flour. Every prospector had access to those. Mulrooney packed
her bags full of silks, hot water bottles and fine cottons – things that miners
in a remote region would want after a long winter digging in the creeks. She sold her supplies at a 600 per cent
mark-up and sunk the money she made into building a restaurant and much-needed
housing for miners.
“There was nowhere then in Dawson for the newcomers to live
and lumber was as scarce as hens’ teeth,” Mulrooney is quoted as saying in the
book Klondike Women.
“I started buying up all the small boats and rafts that were
arriving, hired a crew of young fellows who had nothing to do and had ‘em build
cabins.” Mulrooney’s fortunes grew, but
instead of sitting back and watching the money come in she looked for other
investments.
Mulrooney opened the wildly successful Grand Forks Hotel,
which was located at the junction of Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks. The hotel
quickly became the centre of the town. “Miss
Mulrooney is a modest, refined and prepossessing young woman, a brilliant
conversationalist and a bright business woman,” reported the Klondike News on
April 1, 1898.
As lonely discouraged miners decided to sell their claims
and return home, Mulrooney bought their claims. Soon she became a stakeholder
in one of the most successful companies of the time – the Eldorado-Bonanza
Quartz and Placer Mining Company.
Then Mulrooney moved back to Dawson City and opened the Fair
View Hotel, the finest lodgings in town.
“The completion of the Fair View fills a long-felt want in Dawson,”
reported the Klondike Nugget in July 1898. “Miss Mulrooney is to be commended
for her enterprise, for the hotel is by far the most pretentious structure now
in Dawson.” Mulrooney and Carbonneau married in 1900, in one of the most
glamorous weddings in Dawson City.
They lived happily together for a few years splitting their
time between Dawson and Paris, and then the tides turned. Mulrooney’s businesses began to fail, and
Carbonneau was charged with embezzlement and fraud. Carbonneau and Mulrooney split ways – some accounts say that she
divorced Carbonneau, others say that he left town with her jewels and furs.
Mulrooney followed the Alaskan gold rush to Fairbanks where
she had some success mining and running a bank. She settled in Washington and used her amassed fortune to support
her family. Mulrooney died in Seattle in 1967, at age 95.
