William Moore (steamship Captain) - Alaska

Alaska

By the fall of 1887, after traveling through the White Pass to Lake Bennett, Moore somehow knew that gold would soon be discovered in the Yukon and wasted no time in preparing for the day his prediction would come to pass. With his son, Ben, Moore struck out for Juneau, Alaska by canoe. When they passed what would later be named Skagway, Moore noted that it would be a good place for a wharf. Loading up with supplies in Juneau, they swiftly returned through the Lynn Canal to Skagway Bay where Moore preempted 160 acres (0.65 km2) at the mouth of the Skagway River at a place the Indians called Skagua, and named it Mooresville. He built a log cabin, a sawmill, and began the construction of a wharf in anticipation of the ships that would land there, offloading thousands of eager gold-seekers. He and Ben returned to Victoria in that winter where Moore wrote several letters to Ottawa, telling of the Yukon's great potential and the need for a wagon road over the White Pass. His letters were ignored. Undaunted, as always, Moore returned to his property every summer and freighted through the Lynn Canal with his new sternwheeler, another Flying Dutchman. In 1891, he asked the United States Secretary of the Interior for a contract to build a road through the White Pass, and again, his request was ignored.

In 1896, when Moore was 74, he won the mail contract to deliver the mail on the 600-mile (970 km) long route from Juneau to Forty Mile, Yukon. On one mail trip he met George Carmack, who had just staked a claim on a small creek named Rabbit Creek, soon to be Bonanza Creek, just off of the Klondike River. Moore's prediction was about to come true.