"Swiftwater" Bill Gates (? - 1935) was an American frontiersman and fortune hunter, and a fixture in stories of the Klondike Gold Rush. He made and lost several fortunes, and died in Peru in 1935 pursuing a silver strike.
In one famous Klondike story he presented Dawson dance hall girl Gussie Lamore her weight in gold.
Gates was married briefly to Grace Lamore in 1898; he later married Bera Beebe, with whom he fathered two sons, Fredrick and Clifford. Gates subsequently abandoned her for 15-year-old Kitty Brandon, his niece.
His biography "The True Life Story of Swiftwater Bill Gates" (c. 1908) was authored by Iola Beebe, his mother-in-law.
Swiftwater Bill was known to be at the gold fields of Nome, Alaska at the same time as William H Gates I, grandfather of the Microsoft founder. However, despite the similarity in name and coincidences of geography, there is no apparent family relationship between "Swiftwater Bill" and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Famous quotes containing the words bill and/or gates:
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
“Go through the gates with closed eyes.
Stand erect and let your black face front the west.”
—Arna Bontemps (1902–1973)