Yukon Register of Historic PlacesYRHP

In August 1896, gold was discovered on Rabbit Creek, later named Bonanza. When word reached the outside world, the Klondike Stampede began. Over 100,000 people started out for the Klondike goldfields and some 30,000 actually reached Dawson City in the summer of 1898.

A modern community quickly emerged at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. Dawson City became the supply and service centre for the miners and was capable of providing the newcomers with all that they needed from champagne to oranges.

Dawson City, the heart of the Klondike, was named for Dr. George Mercer Dawson, a Canadian government geologist. A trading post on a mud flat at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, Dawson mushroomed in a single season to become a sprawling boom town, made up of log and frame buildings, and tents. In 1898-9, at the height of the rush, the itinerant population of Dawson was estimated between 20,000 and 30,000, making it the largest community west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle.

The decline of Dawson City was almost as rapid as its rise. With the development of industrial mining, the days of the individual miner were over and the population declined. Those who stayed remained optimistic. Dawson's survival as a community was the result of years of mining activity by the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation and its fleet of dredges. Nonetheless, the town and the economy continued to erode slowly over the decades.

Source: https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/klondike/culture/lhn-nhs-dawson