Traveler's Guide to Fairbanks, Alaska
Pedro, Barnette and the Growth of Fairbanks
The Fairbanks Gold Rush of 1902 was sparked by one man, and he wasn’t Alaskan. Felix Pedro, an Italian prospector was born in Trignano, Italy on April 16, 1858 and fled to America in 1881 after his father died. He began working and made enough money to travel from city to city, each time carrying out small jobs to build up his finances and set off again. He made his way to Washington and into British Columbia before arriving in the Yukon.
Pedro teamed up with a little known prospector by the name of Tom Gilmour, and together they searched Alaska on a quest for gold that would ultimately bring astounding results. They headed to an area known as Fortymile Creek where they achieved some success from panning, but it was when they arrived at Lost Creek in 1898 that they allegedly struck it big. Unfortunately for Pedro, their supplies were running off, so after marking the creek, they set of to find somewhere to replenish their stocks. They intended returning again and panning the creek for gold, but they couldn’t find their way back again and spent the next three years hunting for the place they had marked.
On August 26, 1901, Pedro and Gilmour were still searching for the hidden location when they spotted a steamer putting in to shore at the Chena River at the base of the hill they were sitting on. The steamer was captained by Charles Adams, who had run the ship aground in an attempt to get through to Tanacross in the southeast. He had been persuaded by one of his passengers, Elbridge Truman Barnette, a prospector who had hired him to make the journey and carry his cargo, that the river was a bifurcation of the main waterway. Adams was furious that they had been forced to beach and, because his agreement with Barnette stated that he would drop them off at whichever furthest point they reached, he promptly unloaded Barnette, his wife Isabelle, his hired workers and all their equipment onto the shore. The ship was able to float off the sandbank, and Adams left to head off downstream, abandoning Barnette to his own devices.
Pedro and Gilmour made their way down the hill to the group and promptly purchased a winter’s worth of food and other supplies to sustain them in their continued hunt for the Lost Creek. Unable to move their some 130 tonnes of supplies, and pleased by their first sale, Barnette established a small trading post, which eventually grew into the Fairbanks of today.
Pedro set off north again but was still unable to find the mysterious creek that held his fortune. It wasn’t until July 22, 1902 that he finally struck gold again, and this time it was in a stream lying to the north east of Fairbanks in an area known as the Tanana Hills. It’s now known as Pedro Creek but was unnamed at the time. Pedro announced his find and staked his claim to the river. It sparked a massive gold rush.
Barnette was determined to cash in on Pedro’s find, and made sure the Media got hold of the news. Before long the national newspapers were running the story and prospective pioneers were packing their belongings and heading northwards to join in the hunt. Barnette arranged for more supplies to be delivered to Fairbanks, declared himself Mayor and awaited the arrival of over one thousand prospectors to his small outpost. With business going well, the town grew. Housing lots were sold, a sheriff was appointed and a jail was erected on part of the site owned by the original trading post, and Fairbanks was truly born. Just six years later, in 1908, it had become Alaska’s largest city.
Felix Pedro went on to live in Fairbanks and revel in the delight of his find, but he met an untimely death in 1910 when he died of what was believed at the time to be a heart attack. It has since been decided that he was in fact poisoned, and his wife, Mary Doran, was the main suspect.
And as for Barnette, well he opened the first bank in Fairbanks where he was made President, and then left the town abruptly in 1911 when the bank suddenly went bankrupt, losing over a million dollars of investors money. He was found in Los Angeles a week later with in excess of $500,000.