RICHARD TUCKER VS. PROFESSOR BEN TRENNEMAN AT THE MONTE CARLO THEATER BROADSIDE

RICHARD TUCKER VS. PROFESSOR BEN TRENNEMAN AT THE MONTE CARLO THEATER BROADSIDE

(Yukon Gold Rush – Dawson City – The Monte Carlo Theater) Yukon Gold Rush--Dawson City. MONTE CARLO THEATER. / CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN / WRESTLING MATCH.... / STRUGGLE OF MODERN GLADIATORS / DON’T FAIL TO SEE THEM!

In August 1896, just a few days after George Carmack and his relatives discovered gold in Rabbit Creek--a tributary of the Klondike River--fellow prospector, trader, and sawmill operator Joseph Ladue staked out the muddy flats at the mouth of the river as a town-site, which he registered as Dawson. Miners then claimed all of Rabbit Creek, renamed Bonanza, and quickly spread into neighboring streams seeking additional deposits. Ladue, meanwhile, moved his entire sawmill to Dawson, now home to two dozen people, a pair of log cabins, a small warehouse, and a scattering of tents. Word of the discoveries had yet to reach beyond the Yukon by winter, though prospectors from places downstream began making their way to Dawson, swelling its population to 500. By April, that number had grown to 1500. Not until July 1897 would the ships Excelsior and Portland arrive in San Francisco and Seattle bearing millions of dollars in gold and the promise of so much more. That first summer, Dawson’s population exploded to 5000 people, then to more than 30,000 in June 1898, making it the largest Canadian city west of Winnipeg. With the boom and its carnival atmosphere came saloons and houses of entertainment such as the Dominion, the Phoenix, and the Monte Carlo, eager to profit from a captive audience with little to do through the arctic winter. One of the most popular forms of entertainment at the height of the gold rush was professional wrestling, and all of the major venues featured regular matches. Printed on the press of Dawson’s first paper, this January 1899 announcement of a bout at the Monte Carlo seems to be the only surviving broadside from the city’s gold rush era.

Among the wave of hopefuls trekking toward Dawson in the spring of 1898 was George P. Swinehart of Juneau. Yet unlike most of those who trudged the same arduous route along the Chilkoot Trail, Swinehart carried no prospecting supplies or mining equipment. Instead, having left his position as editor and publisher of the Juneau Mining Record, he carried a small printing press and a set of type, intent on establishing Dawson’s first paper. After crossing Chilkoot Pass in early April, Swinehart’s party--which included his brother and nephew--found themselves stuck on the other side at a place called Caribou Crossing (now shortened to Carcross), located near Lake Bennett. With no choice but to wait for the winter’s ice to go out of the lakes and rivers, Swinehart carefully set up his press on May 16 and printed a single issue of the Caribou Sun. Not only was it the first Yukon newspaper, but also apparently the first Yukon imprint of any kind. OCLC lists just three institutional copies of the Caribou Sun, at Yale, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and the Washington State Library.

Swinehart reached Dawson in early June, and on June 11 he published his first, eight-page issue of the Yukon Midnight Sun, beating his rival Eugene C. Allen’s Klondike Nugget by just five days. The first few issues of Swinehart’s weekly were printed in three columns on both sides of a newsprint sheet folded to a smaller format measuring 21 cm by 28 cm. A month later, a larger press arrived from St. Michael on board the steamship John J. Healy. The subsequent number of the Sun, appearing on July 18, was produced in a four-page format of seven columns per page, and it would retain this format for remainder of its print run, which seems to have ended in 1905. This broadside is the only known surviving imprint from the press of the Sun.

The broadside advertises an upcoming wrestling match between Richard Tucker, identified as the “Heavyweight Champion of California,” and “Professor” Ben Trenneman, the “Champion Middle Weight of the Pacific Coast.” The contest would likely have been a major event: although we can find no information on Richard Tucker, Ben Trenneman was one of the most popular and successful wrestlers on the Dawson stage. And the venue itself was likewise all but certain to draw an enthusiastic crowd. Throughout its gold rush heyday, a period of little more than two years, the epicenter of Dawson’s entertainment district was Front Street. The Monte Carlo--which sat near the Phoenix dance hall and saloon, just north of the Dominion and the Northern--operated as a combination of saloon, gambling hall, theater, dance hall, and restaurant. But for all of the energy and flamboyance, the party was over nearly as soon as it began. Word began to spread as early as August 1898 that there was little easy gold to be had, and in the spring of 1899 there were reports of a new gold strike on the Alaska coast at Cape Nome. With this news Dawson City’s population plummeted almost overnight, to less than five thousand in 1902. By then the Monte Carlo was just a memory; a fire began there on January 10, 1900, and wiped out most of Front Street. As with so many other gold rush boom towns, this and the three previous fires in Dawson’s business district had reduced most of its paper to ash. Apart from the two newspapers, there are less than a handful of known survivals from Dawson’s gold rush printing era, June 1898 to July 1899: an 1898 menu from the Regina Café, printed by the Nugget (at UWash); the 1898 Guide to Dawson City, printed by the Sun; and this broadside, also by the Sun. We trace nothing else.

Dawson City, N.W.T., January 20, 1899. Yukon Sun Print. Broadside or advertising circular. 12 x 9 in. (30.5 x 23 cm). Very thin paper, professional tape repair on verso to pinholes along folds, printer’s ink fingerprints along edges. Overall about very good.

Relevant sources:

Beck, Robin. Primary Sources.

Bush, Edward F. 1979 The Dawson City News: Journalism in the Klondike. Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History 21:71-127.

Kurutz, Gary F. 2021 The Klondike & Alaska Gold Rushes: A Descriptive Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets Covering the Years 1896-1905. The Book Club of California, San Francisco.

Porsild, Charlene 2007 Gamblers and Dreamers: Men, Women, and Community in the Klondike. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver.