Grayson County TXGenWEb

Grayson County TXGenWeb

Knaur Family

Party Off For Klondike

     22 Feb 1898, Dallas Morning News

"Party Off for Klondike — Four Prospectors Leave Denison for the Gold Fields of Alaska"

DENISON, TX -- February 21. E. C. Royce left this afternoon with Messrs. Boldrick, Knaur, and Cummings for the Klondike country. Mr. Royce has been running an engine out of Denison on the Katy for many years. He will chance his fortune on the Klondike, hoping to return laden with gold.

This was a touching scene at the depot this afternoon when the Klondike party bade farewell to their friends and families and took departure. John S. Knaur, Tom Boldrick and Dave Cummings left this afternoon for Seattle, where they will buy the outfit that they will need to make the trip to Alaska and proceed as soon as possible to get to the mining country.

The three men are all well known to Denison. Tom Boldrick has been in business ever since it has been a town. John S. Knaur has also been in business here a long time. Mr. Cummings is a young Missourian who has been in Denison for some years, engaged in the cattle business with F. A. Utiger. All of the three are plucky, earnest men, and if there is gold to be got in the Klondike country, they will bring back their proportionate share.



     From A Returned Klondiker

     4 Sep 1898, Dallas Morning News

"From a Returned Klondiker — Plenty of Gold There, But It's Hardly Worth the Struggle For It."

September 4, 1898

DENISON, TX — Sept 3. — J. S. Knaur, a Denison businessman, who has just returned from Klondike country, where he went last winter, does not tell a very glowing tale of wealth in the new El Dorado, neither does he descent with particular eloquence on the beauty of the scenery, excellence of the fare, and charms of the climate in the far north.

IS THE KLONDIKE COUNTRY A WEALTHY STOREHOUSE OF GOLD THAT HAS BEEN CLAIMED FOR IT?

There is plenty of gold there I guess, replied Mr. Knaur in a non-committal sort of way, but it is hard work to get it. The season in which work can be done is short, the mosquitoes are bad, food is scarce, there is more or less sickness in the working season, and altogether it is a pretty hard combination to run up against. Our party got in the Klondike country early in the spring and got a good start. No trouble to get claims, but it is some trouble to get anything out of the claims. We worked hard, but never struck it as rich as some.

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE GOAT TRAIN YOU TOOK UP WITH YOU FROM SEATTLE?

The goats worked all right. We had no trouble with them and took them clear to Dawson with us, but we neglected to take any shears with us. If we had had shears and could have clipped them, we could have fattened them and sold them for $50 apiece, but as they were, when the warm weather came, they shed their long hair and had little but naked hide left. This gave the mosquitos a good chance and they almost ate the goats up.

In the Klondike country the fat get lean and the lean get fat. I lost 35 pounds of my flesh. W. A. Grant, an old Denison conductor on the Katy, lost 65 pounds and looks lean and hungry now. A Mr. Hunter of Dallas and Mr. Grant were together when I left. Hunter went to the Klondike country fat and well-fed looking. When I saw him the other day I didn't recognize him, he had grown so thin — looked like a knife had been worked down his front, trimming him up for a foot race. That water up there doesn't agree with the people who go up from this country. It makes them sick and causes loss of flesh as a rule. You see a man round-faced and plump going to Klondike; you see a lean, hungry-looking man coming away, and sometimes his best friends don't recognize him.

All the mining up there is placer mining. The country has been well worked over. Sometimes a man makes a strike and comes out with $50,000 or perhaps more, but such cases are becoming more infrequent. The men who go there to work for wages could do well and come out after awhile with plenty of money, but they won't do it. They get from $10 to $15 per day, but as soon as they draw their money, they go to town and the dance hall and gambling house get it all. Of course, there are cases where these men save their money, but they are not in the majority. I suppose that quartz mining could be carried on successfully, but they haven't reached that stage yet. It is too much work and requires too much expense under present circumstances.

I was there for two months and heard of no phenomenal strikes of gold by anybody. Some men were finding good-paying streaks of gold and were making money, but nothing of the phenomenal. Dawson is building up, and a great many houses are being erected there for permanent residence for miners in the severe winters, but that is no place for me. Too many mosquitoes, scarcity of food, and rigors of winter.

The Klondike country is not much different from this. There are many who work all their lives and never lay up anything, and there are others who strike it rich and come out all right. It is a game of chance, and the chances are desperate.

On the return trip back, we came down the Yukon River to St. Michaels. I left Dawson on the 29th of August, fared well in the boat going down the river to St. Michaels, but from that point it was very rough. We expected to come down to Seattle from St. Michaels on the St. Paul, but the steamer had been impressed by the government to take troops to Manila, and we had to take what we could get. The fare was rough and the actions of the officers rougher. Arriving at Dutch Harbor we stopped for awhile, and to an American warship at that point one of our party made complaint of treatment. An investigation of affairs was made by officers of the warship, and after that we fared some better coming into Seattle.

I left the Denison contingent, and many that I met from Paris, Dallas, and other points in Dawson. They were all in good health, but the fat ones have grown lean, and the lean ones have taken on flesh, the change being so great in some instances that their friends would not recognize them if they should see them.

Mr. Knaur brought back a little gold dust with him, just as a sample of what the country has in it, but the sample he brought back was small compared with the expense he had.

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