Picture the ton of gold that stepped off the steamship Portland right here in 1897. On July 17, 1897, the steamship Portland docked at the Seattle waterfront carrying sixty-eight prospectors and what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported as a ton of gold from the Klondike region of the Yukon. The headline read GOLD!
GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!
and the paper sold out before noon. Within days, the entire country was gripped by gold fever, and Seattle, as the closest major American port to Alaska, became the mandatory staging ground for prospectors heading north. City merchants were aggressive: Mayor W.D. Wood resigned mid-term to lead an expedition himself.
Seattle businesses sold outfitting packages — the Canadian authorities required each prospector to bring a year's worth of supplies — and the city's economy transformed overnight. Outfitters, shipping companies, hotels, and banks all fed the rush. The money that flooded through Pioneer Square in 1897 and 1898 built much of the brick neighborhood around you.
This park, a unit of the National Park Service, occupies the former Cadillac Hotel and tells the story of the Gold Rush through photographs, artifacts, and oral histories. The rangers here are among the most knowledgeable storytellers in the NPS system.