May 26, 2023 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, no woman figured more prominently on the Yukon and Alaskan frontiers than Belinda Mulrooney. She gained international fame as the richest woman in the Klondike and made and lost more than one fortune. She became a character in novels and her dog the inspiration for "Buck" in the Call of the Wild. Here to tell the story is Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
And we continue with our American Stories. Between eighteen ninety
six and eighteen ninety nine, the stampede to Dawson City
in the Yukon was the last great gold Rushian history. Scurvy, dysentery, frostbite, starvation,
and worst of all, failure stalked all who dared to
arrive in Dawson. Here to tell the story of one
(00:36):
of the bravest and most successful entrepreneurs of the Klondike
gold Rush is Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwomen and Vigilantes,
a US marine and former history professor at UCLA, McGrath
has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and is a
regular contributor here for us at our American Stories, Here's McGrath.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No woman figure more prominently on the Yukon and Alaskan
frontiers than Belinda mulrooney. She gained international fame as the
richest woman in the Klondike and made and loss more
than one fortune. She became a character in novels, and
her dog the inspiration for Buck in the Call of
the Wild. Blynda Maulroney is born in Ireland in eighteen
(01:23):
seventy two, but she's reared partly in Pennsylvania when her
father leaves Ireland to work in Scranton's coal mines. Here's
Melanie Mayer, author of Staking Her Claim The Life of
Belinda Maulrooney, Klondike and Alaska entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Belinda's early years in Ireland have a big effect on
her personality. She doesn't know her father, John, because he
leaves for America shortly after she's born. Then, after two
years of bonding with her mother Mary, Mary disappears too.
Belinda is left in the care of her loving grandparents
the farm in Ireland, and she does have some young,
(02:03):
rough and tumble uncle playmates who help her learn to
stand up for herself and not wine. But losing her
mother is traumatic. Who could she really trust? Who can
she really love? This will be an issue the rest
of her life. As a child, she turns to her
trusty donkey. She calls him her twin because he was
(02:24):
born on the same day she was. When Belinda is
almost thirteen years old, her parents send for her to
come to America. She says, leaving my uncle's was bad,
leaving my grandmother was worse, But leaving the donkey, I
threw my arms around his neck and I cried and
cried for hours after I left.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Him Belinda Lee's home in eighteen ninety three to open
a small restaurant at the Colombian Exposition in Chicago. For
the exposition closes, she has accumulated eight thousand dollars in price.
That's something like a quarter million in today's money. Mulrooney's
next stop is California, where she opens an ice cream
(03:08):
parlor in San Francisco. The money is rolling in again,
but a fire destroys the parlor and leaves her broke.
She ships aboard a coastal steamer city of Topeka as
a stewardess. She quickly gains a reputation for resourcefulness business,
a cuman, quick wit and spirit. When a snobbish passenger
(03:31):
condescendingly tells her to black his boots, she tells him,
if she sees his boots outside his cabin door, she
will throw a pitcher of water on them. When a
baby has to be delivered, she does a job while
the ship's captain stands discreetly outside the cabin door and
reads instructions from a medical text. The captain is so
(03:55):
impressed by mulrooney he soon puts her in charge of
purchasing supply for the ship. For her extra duties. She
receives a ten percent commission on the cost of the supplies,
but so can he is belinda that the captain still
reckons he gets a bargain. When news of the gold
(04:16):
strike in the Klondike region of the Yukon reaches the
Alaskan coast during the spring of eighteen ninety seven, Malrooney
has saved five thousand dollars. She says goodbye to the
captain and uses her money to buy all the cotton
goods and hot water bottles she can find. With the
help of hired hands, she packs her goods from the
(04:37):
port of DAii over a treacherous Chilcoot Pass and then
floats on a raft hundreds of miles down the Yukon
River to Dawson, a mining camp that is fast becoming
the great boomtown of the far North. Stepping ashore, Maulroney
throws the last coin in her pocket into the river
and exclaims, never again. Well, I need such small change.
(05:02):
She's right. She sells her cotton goods and hot water
bottles on Dawson's main street at a six hundred percent profit.
Here's Charlotte Gray, author of Gold Diggers, Striking it Rich
in the Klondike.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
In her packing, she has these long aluminum tubes and
she won't tell anybody what's in them. She gets to
Dawson within six weeks, she has a restaurant going, she
is supplying men with outfits, and she has a construction
(05:39):
business going. Because what was in those aluminum tubes was
incredibly wonderful silk underwear, lingerie night dresses. And she knew
that there were women in Dawson and she could sell
this stuff to them at a huge profit.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Shoupin's a niner that's crowded with men daily and builds
cabins that are sold before they are finished. Here's Melanie Mayor.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Belinda reaches Dawson in the early summer of eighteen ninety
seven when she's twenty five years old. She's been clever
enough to get there before most of the stampede of
gold seekers, but she knows they're coming, so she explains,
I started buying up all the small boats and rafts
that were arriving, hired a crew of young fellows who
(06:30):
had nothing to do. They took apart the boats salvaging
the lumber and nails. I had him build cabins. I
wasn't thinking of the money I'd make. We just had
to shoulder those people. But of course Belinda does make
money from those cabins, and even old timers who've been
mining in the Klondike for a while end up wanting
(06:51):
a cabin for when they come into town. One old timer,
swift Water Bill Gates, comes into Dawson with a load
of gold. He's so easy to buy one of Belunda's cabins.
He pays six five hundred dollars for it. In today's money,
that's like one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Mulroney takes another gamble and opens a hotel in store
in the heart of the mines, where Eldorado Creek pours
into Bonanza Creek. Your hand is Sharlotte Gray.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's the city of whiskey, women, and gold. Everything was
paid for in nuggets and gold flakes, and every commercial
establishment had a set of scales on its content.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
By the fall of ninety seven, her Grand Forks Hotel
is open. Prices for meal and lodging, and for whiskey
and cigars are the highest in the Yukon. No matter
sour doughs throw golden nuggets under the Grand Forks bar
mulroney is also in a location to get the first
word on every new claim. By winter. She's an investor
(08:02):
in several valuable mining properties.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Putting a hotel fifteen miles from Dawson at the junction
of Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks the Forks is an everybody's
notion of a good idea. One old timer explains, boys,
there's a new woman up to the forks with a
bit of an Irish brogue and the tongue of a
dlawyer that's going to show us old mossbacks how to
get rich hanged if she ain't got so much money
(08:28):
to lose that she's going to build a two story
hotel bigger than any in Dawson, right up here on
the creeks. But that's Belinda's genius. She can seek possibilities
where others see only muck, and she has great energy
and self confidence, even when only twenty five years old.
She builds the Grand Forks Hotel using construction skills she
(08:51):
learned at the Chicago World's Fair five years earlier. And
the Grand Forks Hotel is a huge success. Not only
is a hotel, but also as a restaurant, a bank,
and a social center during the long, bitterly cold nights
of the Yukon winter.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And when we come back, we'll hear more of Belinda
Mulroney's story. The Richest Woman in the Klondike. America not reimagined,
but America's story simply retold how American stories continues after
these commercial messages. And we returned to Roger McGrath and
(09:41):
the story of Klondike gold Strike Queen Belinda mulroony.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
When a boat loaded with supplies is wrecked on a
sandbar in the Yukon River, Belinda goes into partnership with
Alex McDonald the salvage the cargo. Big Alex stands over
six foot seven and weighs nearly three hundred pounds. He
began his stay in the Far North as a laborer
and worked his way up to managing an Alaskan trading company.
(10:10):
Through the acquisition of one mind after another, he is
becoming a multimillionaire. He will soon be known as the
King of the Klondike. Mulrooney and MacDonald have a crue
salvage icrgo, but MacDonald has the goods divided. Before mulroney arrives,
McDonald takes crates full of foodstuffs for himself and leaves
(10:31):
cases of whiskey and boxes of rubber boots for Mulrooney.
With winter approaching and starvation or real possibility food stuffs
will be at a premium, you're all paved through the
nose for this, Belinda tells Big Alex. Here again is
Melanie Mayor, author of Staking her Claim The Life of
(10:52):
Belinda mulrooney, Klondike and Alaska entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
You can understand Belinda's relation to Alex McDonald if you
think of her rough and tumble days with her uncles
in Ireland. They like each other, but they're competitive, very competitive.
Their so called practical jokes are tricks where the jokester
sets up the other person to be duped, but Belinda
is determined to not be anybody's victim.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Early in the spring of eighteen ninety eight, there is
an unusual heat wave causing a sudden fall. They're rapidly
melting snow and ice floods the Klondike country. Work in
the mines is impossible without rubber boots. None other than
Big Alex arrives at Mulroney's pleading for rubber boots for
(11:41):
his men. Blina sells the boots all right, but makes
him pay thirty dollars a pair, the equivalent of nine
hundred dollars in today's money. Mulroney uses the profits to
build the Fairview Hotel on Dawson's Main Street. During the
spring and summer, nearly every thing that goes into the
Fairview has to be freighted from the port of Skagway.
(12:05):
Blinda makes the long and dangerous journey to the Alaskan
coast to personally supervise the operation. She arrives there only
to learn that Joe Brooks, the packer she has hired,
has moved her goods just two miles up the trail
before dumping the cargo when getting a better offer to
transport whiskey for Bill McPhee. Joe Brooks is now about
(12:29):
to learn what Big Alex learned. Don't cross Melinda Mulrooney.
Blinda marches to the Skagway Wars and hires the roughest
men she can find. Legend says, she instigates a fight
among them and makes the last man standing her foreman.
Whether that's true. She's soon leading these men up the trail.
(12:53):
They catch up with Joe Brooks and his crew and
beat him and his men into submission. Blinda mounts Joe
brooks own horse and weads the back train over white
paths and down to boats waiting on the Yukon. The
Fairview Hotel opens by the end of summer eighteen ninety eight.
(13:15):
It's the most elegant hotel in the Far North. It
has twenty two steam heated rooms, electric lights, Turkish steam
baths and dining tables spread with fine linen and set
with sterling, silver and bone china. Cut glass chandeliers hang
from the ceilings in an orchestra plays in the lobby.
(13:36):
The Fairview is a cash cow from the day it opens.
During its first twenty four hours of operation, the bar
a loan takes in six thousand dollars something like one
hundred and eighty thousand to day. By the fall of
ninety eight, Belinda is known internationally. Scribner's magazine calls her
the richest woman of the Klondike, and others christened her
(13:59):
the Queen of Grand Forks. She becomes a character in
the novels of James Oliver Kerwood, and her dog Nero
becomes immortalized as Buck in Jack London's The Call of
the Wild. Here's Melanie Mayor.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Belinda's saint Bernard. Nero is just a big pup when
she dops him in Dawson, and he immediately captures her heart.
He grows to be as big as she is, and
Nero goes everywhere with Belinda, on the trails, into her
cabins or hotel onto boats. When there's snow on the ground,
he proudly pulls her in a sleigh basket. He is
(14:38):
her best friend. One day, during the spring thaw, they're
coming back to Dawson loaded with gold taken in at
the Grand Forks Hotel. Belinda has a heavy backpack of it.
Nero carries two bags of gold across his back like
a saddle. They come to a place where they have
to cross Bonanza Creek on a log, so Belinda goes first,
(15:00):
but when Nero tries to follow, he slips and falls
into the icy, rushing water. His load of gold is
so heavy he sinks to the bottom. He can't swim,
can only sometimes bob his head out of the freezing
water for a gasp of air. Holding onto the tree
with one hand. With the other, she manages to grab
(15:20):
Nero's collar on one of his bobs for air, but
now there in a dangerous fix. The tree is swaying.
Belinda can't lift Nero out. He's too big and the
gold makes him even heavier. All she can do is
keep his head above the water and hope that she
could keep hanging onto the tree. Eventually, some miners come along.
(15:43):
One miner starts to climb out on the tree with
Belinda in an attempt to reach Nero, but then the
tree abruptly SAgs. Both Belinda and the miner are dumped
into the water with Nero. Eventually, with everyone hauling and
pushing Nero, Belinda and the helpful miner are rescued. Once
(16:03):
his packs are off, Nero shakes off the excess water
and is set to go again. Belinda, of course, is
soaked and with no dry clothes on hand, she has
a very cold height in the Dawson. Yes, Nero is
Belinda's best friend in the Klondake. Even decades later, in
(16:24):
nineteen sixty two, when interviewed on her ninetieth birthday, Tears
come to Belinda's eyes when she remembers her faithful beloved Nero.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
In nineteen nunder Belinda Molney Marius Charles Eugene Charbeneau purportedly
a French count with the States in Europe. He is bold,
dashing and handsome, but French Canadian rather than French, and
no count of any kind. Before Belinda learns the truth,
the couple honeymoons in Europe as the Count and Countess.
(16:56):
Upon their return to the Klondake, Belinda becomes the manager
of the Gold Run mining Company. When she takes control
of the company, it's bleeding red. Within eighteen months, she
has it making millions again. Her husband, meanwhile, is losing
millions of Belinda's money in European business ventures. She divorces
(17:17):
him in nineteen six. Through art work and daring gambles,
Belinda recovers much of her fortune. One of her new
businesses is the Dome City Bank of Alaska. When an
investor accuses one of Belinda's sisters of embezzling money from
the bank, Belinda collars the man and horse whips him until,
(17:37):
in the words of the Fairbanks Times, he cried like
a baby. Embarrassed. The man later claims Blinda had two
men help her. I needed no help, she replies. Twenty friends,
all old sourdoughs of Alaska beg to be allowed to
take the work off my hands. But it was a
family affair, and I attended to it to the best
(17:59):
of mine. My ability a blackmailer simply received a little
Alaska justice. Sue Taylor, a woman who plays the role
of Belinda Mulrooney for visiting tourists at the Palace Grand
Theater in Dawson City, shares what brought her to the
area and explains why people are still drawn to Dawson
(18:21):
to this very day.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
We Linda Mulroney was. She is a fabulous character and
I feel very honored to play her. Every time they
told her she couldn't do something, she went and did
it even bigger and better than they said she couldn't do.
And now that's the spirit that's still here. Oh you
bet so. I came up here and thought I'd see
what happened, and moved into a tent. Town was full
of mud, bought a brand new pair of river boots,
and that was my first day. Walked down to the
(18:45):
Westminster Hotel. The boyfriend he stayed outside. He was afraid
to go in. I went inside and with my bright
shiny boots on, and these big hairy guys took one
look at my boots, picked me up by my boots,
shook me until I fell out of it. Then they
poured the jugg of beer into the gum boot and
they passed it all around. And when it got to me,
I had to drink too, and I guess I was
(19:05):
just accepted. I liked it fine. My boyfriend never did
come in. He left town very quickly. But I state
it's just as place as a calling for people who
just want to do be themselves and be who they
want to be, be who they are.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Lend him already eventually leaves the far North and builds
a grand estate near Yakama, Washington. It becomes known as
the Charmoneau Castle and is today a historical landmark. She
lives there until shortly before her death at the age
of ninety five in nineteen sixty seven, making her the
(19:42):
last of the legends of the Klondike Gold Rush to die.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
And what a story. Great job is always by Greg
Hangler and thanks as always to Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen,
and Vigilantes. Also a special thanks to Melanie Meyer, author
of Staking Her Claim the Life of Belinda Mulrooney, Belinda
Mulrooney's story, the Richest Woman in the Klondike. Here on
(20:08):
our American Stories.
And we continue with our American Stories. Between eighteen ninety
six and eighteen ninety nine, the stampede to Dawson City
in the Yukon was the last great gold Rushian history. Scurvy, dysentery, frostbite, starvation,
and worst of all, failure stalked all who dared to
arrive in Dawson. Here to tell the story of one
(00:36):
of the bravest and most successful entrepreneurs of the Klondike
gold Rush is Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwomen and Vigilantes,
a US marine and former history professor at UCLA, McGrath
has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and is a
regular contributor here for us at our American Stories, Here's McGrath.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No woman figure more prominently on the Yukon and Alaskan
frontiers than Belinda mulrooney. She gained international fame as the
richest woman in the Klondike and made and loss more
than one fortune. She became a character in novels, and
her dog the inspiration for Buck in the Call of
the Wild. Blynda Maulroney is born in Ireland in eighteen
(01:23):
seventy two, but she's reared partly in Pennsylvania when her
father leaves Ireland to work in Scranton's coal mines. Here's
Melanie Mayer, author of Staking Her Claim The Life of
Belinda Maulrooney, Klondike and Alaska entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Belinda's early years in Ireland have a big effect on
her personality. She doesn't know her father, John, because he
leaves for America shortly after she's born. Then, after two
years of bonding with her mother Mary, Mary disappears too.
Belinda is left in the care of her loving grandparents
the farm in Ireland, and she does have some young,
(02:03):
rough and tumble uncle playmates who help her learn to
stand up for herself and not wine. But losing her
mother is traumatic. Who could she really trust? Who can
she really love? This will be an issue the rest
of her life. As a child, she turns to her
trusty donkey. She calls him her twin because he was
(02:24):
born on the same day she was. When Belinda is
almost thirteen years old, her parents send for her to
come to America. She says, leaving my uncle's was bad,
leaving my grandmother was worse, But leaving the donkey, I
threw my arms around his neck and I cried and
cried for hours after I left.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Him Belinda Lee's home in eighteen ninety three to open
a small restaurant at the Colombian Exposition in Chicago. For
the exposition closes, she has accumulated eight thousand dollars in price.
That's something like a quarter million in today's money. Mulrooney's
next stop is California, where she opens an ice cream
(03:08):
parlor in San Francisco. The money is rolling in again,
but a fire destroys the parlor and leaves her broke.
She ships aboard a coastal steamer city of Topeka as
a stewardess. She quickly gains a reputation for resourcefulness business,
a cuman, quick wit and spirit. When a snobbish passenger
(03:31):
condescendingly tells her to black his boots, she tells him,
if she sees his boots outside his cabin door, she
will throw a pitcher of water on them. When a
baby has to be delivered, she does a job while
the ship's captain stands discreetly outside the cabin door and
reads instructions from a medical text. The captain is so
(03:55):
impressed by mulrooney he soon puts her in charge of
purchasing supply for the ship. For her extra duties. She
receives a ten percent commission on the cost of the supplies,
but so can he is belinda that the captain still
reckons he gets a bargain. When news of the gold
(04:16):
strike in the Klondike region of the Yukon reaches the
Alaskan coast during the spring of eighteen ninety seven, Malrooney
has saved five thousand dollars. She says goodbye to the
captain and uses her money to buy all the cotton
goods and hot water bottles she can find. With the
help of hired hands, she packs her goods from the
(04:37):
port of DAii over a treacherous Chilcoot Pass and then
floats on a raft hundreds of miles down the Yukon
River to Dawson, a mining camp that is fast becoming
the great boomtown of the far North. Stepping ashore, Maulroney
throws the last coin in her pocket into the river
and exclaims, never again. Well, I need such small change.
(05:02):
She's right. She sells her cotton goods and hot water
bottles on Dawson's main street at a six hundred percent profit.
Here's Charlotte Gray, author of Gold Diggers, Striking it Rich
in the Klondike.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
In her packing, she has these long aluminum tubes and
she won't tell anybody what's in them. She gets to
Dawson within six weeks, she has a restaurant going, she
is supplying men with outfits, and she has a construction
(05:39):
business going. Because what was in those aluminum tubes was
incredibly wonderful silk underwear, lingerie night dresses. And she knew
that there were women in Dawson and she could sell
this stuff to them at a huge profit.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Shoupin's a niner that's crowded with men daily and builds
cabins that are sold before they are finished. Here's Melanie Mayor.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Belinda reaches Dawson in the early summer of eighteen ninety
seven when she's twenty five years old. She's been clever
enough to get there before most of the stampede of
gold seekers, but she knows they're coming, so she explains,
I started buying up all the small boats and rafts
that were arriving, hired a crew of young fellows who
(06:30):
had nothing to do. They took apart the boats salvaging
the lumber and nails. I had him build cabins. I
wasn't thinking of the money I'd make. We just had
to shoulder those people. But of course Belinda does make
money from those cabins, and even old timers who've been
mining in the Klondike for a while end up wanting
(06:51):
a cabin for when they come into town. One old timer,
swift Water Bill Gates, comes into Dawson with a load
of gold. He's so easy to buy one of Belunda's cabins.
He pays six five hundred dollars for it. In today's money,
that's like one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Mulroney takes another gamble and opens a hotel in store
in the heart of the mines, where Eldorado Creek pours
into Bonanza Creek. Your hand is Sharlotte Gray.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's the city of whiskey, women, and gold. Everything was
paid for in nuggets and gold flakes, and every commercial
establishment had a set of scales on its content.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
By the fall of ninety seven, her Grand Forks Hotel
is open. Prices for meal and lodging, and for whiskey
and cigars are the highest in the Yukon. No matter
sour doughs throw golden nuggets under the Grand Forks bar
mulroney is also in a location to get the first
word on every new claim. By winter. She's an investor
(08:02):
in several valuable mining properties.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Putting a hotel fifteen miles from Dawson at the junction
of Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks the Forks is an everybody's
notion of a good idea. One old timer explains, boys,
there's a new woman up to the forks with a
bit of an Irish brogue and the tongue of a
dlawyer that's going to show us old mossbacks how to
get rich hanged if she ain't got so much money
(08:28):
to lose that she's going to build a two story
hotel bigger than any in Dawson, right up here on
the creeks. But that's Belinda's genius. She can seek possibilities
where others see only muck, and she has great energy
and self confidence, even when only twenty five years old.
She builds the Grand Forks Hotel using construction skills she
(08:51):
learned at the Chicago World's Fair five years earlier. And
the Grand Forks Hotel is a huge success. Not only
is a hotel, but also as a restaurant, a bank,
and a social center during the long, bitterly cold nights
of the Yukon winter.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And when we come back, we'll hear more of Belinda
Mulroney's story. The Richest Woman in the Klondike. America not reimagined,
but America's story simply retold how American stories continues after
these commercial messages. And we returned to Roger McGrath and
(09:41):
the story of Klondike gold Strike Queen Belinda mulroony.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
When a boat loaded with supplies is wrecked on a
sandbar in the Yukon River, Belinda goes into partnership with
Alex McDonald the salvage the cargo. Big Alex stands over
six foot seven and weighs nearly three hundred pounds. He
began his stay in the Far North as a laborer
and worked his way up to managing an Alaskan trading company.
(10:10):
Through the acquisition of one mind after another, he is
becoming a multimillionaire. He will soon be known as the
King of the Klondike. Mulrooney and MacDonald have a crue
salvage icrgo, but MacDonald has the goods divided. Before mulroney arrives,
McDonald takes crates full of foodstuffs for himself and leaves
(10:31):
cases of whiskey and boxes of rubber boots for Mulrooney.
With winter approaching and starvation or real possibility food stuffs
will be at a premium, you're all paved through the
nose for this, Belinda tells Big Alex. Here again is
Melanie Mayor, author of Staking her Claim The Life of
(10:52):
Belinda mulrooney, Klondike and Alaska entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
You can understand Belinda's relation to Alex McDonald if you
think of her rough and tumble days with her uncles
in Ireland. They like each other, but they're competitive, very competitive.
Their so called practical jokes are tricks where the jokester
sets up the other person to be duped, but Belinda
is determined to not be anybody's victim.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Early in the spring of eighteen ninety eight, there is
an unusual heat wave causing a sudden fall. They're rapidly
melting snow and ice floods the Klondike country. Work in
the mines is impossible without rubber boots. None other than
Big Alex arrives at Mulroney's pleading for rubber boots for
(11:41):
his men. Blina sells the boots all right, but makes
him pay thirty dollars a pair, the equivalent of nine
hundred dollars in today's money. Mulroney uses the profits to
build the Fairview Hotel on Dawson's Main Street. During the
spring and summer, nearly every thing that goes into the
Fairview has to be freighted from the port of Skagway.
(12:05):
Blinda makes the long and dangerous journey to the Alaskan
coast to personally supervise the operation. She arrives there only
to learn that Joe Brooks, the packer she has hired,
has moved her goods just two miles up the trail
before dumping the cargo when getting a better offer to
transport whiskey for Bill McPhee. Joe Brooks is now about
(12:29):
to learn what Big Alex learned. Don't cross Melinda Mulrooney.
Blinda marches to the Skagway Wars and hires the roughest
men she can find. Legend says, she instigates a fight
among them and makes the last man standing her foreman.
Whether that's true. She's soon leading these men up the trail.
(12:53):
They catch up with Joe Brooks and his crew and
beat him and his men into submission. Blinda mounts Joe
brooks own horse and weads the back train over white
paths and down to boats waiting on the Yukon. The
Fairview Hotel opens by the end of summer eighteen ninety eight.
(13:15):
It's the most elegant hotel in the Far North. It
has twenty two steam heated rooms, electric lights, Turkish steam
baths and dining tables spread with fine linen and set
with sterling, silver and bone china. Cut glass chandeliers hang
from the ceilings in an orchestra plays in the lobby.
(13:36):
The Fairview is a cash cow from the day it opens.
During its first twenty four hours of operation, the bar
a loan takes in six thousand dollars something like one
hundred and eighty thousand to day. By the fall of
ninety eight, Belinda is known internationally. Scribner's magazine calls her
the richest woman of the Klondike, and others christened her
(13:59):
the Queen of Grand Forks. She becomes a character in
the novels of James Oliver Kerwood, and her dog Nero
becomes immortalized as Buck in Jack London's The Call of
the Wild. Here's Melanie Mayor.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Belinda's saint Bernard. Nero is just a big pup when
she dops him in Dawson, and he immediately captures her heart.
He grows to be as big as she is, and
Nero goes everywhere with Belinda, on the trails, into her
cabins or hotel onto boats. When there's snow on the ground,
he proudly pulls her in a sleigh basket. He is
(14:38):
her best friend. One day, during the spring thaw, they're
coming back to Dawson loaded with gold taken in at
the Grand Forks Hotel. Belinda has a heavy backpack of it.
Nero carries two bags of gold across his back like
a saddle. They come to a place where they have
to cross Bonanza Creek on a log, so Belinda goes first,
(15:00):
but when Nero tries to follow, he slips and falls
into the icy, rushing water. His load of gold is
so heavy he sinks to the bottom. He can't swim,
can only sometimes bob his head out of the freezing
water for a gasp of air. Holding onto the tree
with one hand. With the other, she manages to grab
(15:20):
Nero's collar on one of his bobs for air, but
now there in a dangerous fix. The tree is swaying.
Belinda can't lift Nero out. He's too big and the
gold makes him even heavier. All she can do is
keep his head above the water and hope that she
could keep hanging onto the tree. Eventually, some miners come along.
(15:43):
One miner starts to climb out on the tree with
Belinda in an attempt to reach Nero, but then the
tree abruptly SAgs. Both Belinda and the miner are dumped
into the water with Nero. Eventually, with everyone hauling and
pushing Nero, Belinda and the helpful miner are rescued. Once
(16:03):
his packs are off, Nero shakes off the excess water
and is set to go again. Belinda, of course, is
soaked and with no dry clothes on hand, she has
a very cold height in the Dawson. Yes, Nero is
Belinda's best friend in the Klondake. Even decades later, in
(16:24):
nineteen sixty two, when interviewed on her ninetieth birthday, Tears
come to Belinda's eyes when she remembers her faithful beloved Nero.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
In nineteen nunder Belinda Molney Marius Charles Eugene Charbeneau purportedly
a French count with the States in Europe. He is bold,
dashing and handsome, but French Canadian rather than French, and
no count of any kind. Before Belinda learns the truth,
the couple honeymoons in Europe as the Count and Countess.
(16:56):
Upon their return to the Klondake, Belinda becomes the manager
of the Gold Run mining Company. When she takes control
of the company, it's bleeding red. Within eighteen months, she
has it making millions again. Her husband, meanwhile, is losing
millions of Belinda's money in European business ventures. She divorces
(17:17):
him in nineteen six. Through art work and daring gambles,
Belinda recovers much of her fortune. One of her new
businesses is the Dome City Bank of Alaska. When an
investor accuses one of Belinda's sisters of embezzling money from
the bank, Belinda collars the man and horse whips him until,
(17:37):
in the words of the Fairbanks Times, he cried like
a baby. Embarrassed. The man later claims Blinda had two
men help her. I needed no help, she replies. Twenty friends,
all old sourdoughs of Alaska beg to be allowed to
take the work off my hands. But it was a
family affair, and I attended to it to the best
(17:59):
of mine. My ability a blackmailer simply received a little
Alaska justice. Sue Taylor, a woman who plays the role
of Belinda Mulrooney for visiting tourists at the Palace Grand
Theater in Dawson City, shares what brought her to the
area and explains why people are still drawn to Dawson
(18:21):
to this very day.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
We Linda Mulroney was. She is a fabulous character and
I feel very honored to play her. Every time they
told her she couldn't do something, she went and did
it even bigger and better than they said she couldn't do.
And now that's the spirit that's still here. Oh you
bet so. I came up here and thought I'd see
what happened, and moved into a tent. Town was full
of mud, bought a brand new pair of river boots,
and that was my first day. Walked down to the
(18:45):
Westminster Hotel. The boyfriend he stayed outside. He was afraid
to go in. I went inside and with my bright
shiny boots on, and these big hairy guys took one
look at my boots, picked me up by my boots,
shook me until I fell out of it. Then they
poured the jugg of beer into the gum boot and
they passed it all around. And when it got to me,
I had to drink too, and I guess I was
(19:05):
just accepted. I liked it fine. My boyfriend never did
come in. He left town very quickly. But I state
it's just as place as a calling for people who
just want to do be themselves and be who they
want to be, be who they are.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Lend him already eventually leaves the far North and builds
a grand estate near Yakama, Washington. It becomes known as
the Charmoneau Castle and is today a historical landmark. She
lives there until shortly before her death at the age
of ninety five in nineteen sixty seven, making her the
(19:42):
last of the legends of the Klondike Gold Rush to die.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
And what a story. Great job is always by Greg
Hangler and thanks as always to Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen,
and Vigilantes. Also a special thanks to Melanie Meyer, author
of Staking Her Claim the Life of Belinda Mulrooney, Belinda
Mulrooney's story, the Richest Woman in the Klondike. Here on
(20:08):
our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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