Harriet Pullen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | August 13, 1860 |
| Died | August 9, 1947 |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | "Ma" Pullen |
| Occupation(s) | Businesswoman, hotelier |
| Era | Klondike Gold Rush |
Harriet "Ma" Pullen (August 13, 1860 – August 9, 1947 [1] ), was an American entrepreneur and hotelier in Skagway, Alaska. After running a freighting company, she bought a house and converted it into the luxurious Pullen House Hotel. [2]
She was born to Andrew Jackson and Mary Jane Stewart Smith in Mount Hope, Wisconsin, on August 13, 1860. [1] On February 23, 1881, she married Daniel Webster Pullen. [1] They had a farm in Cape Flattery, Washington, and had four children, Dan, Royal, Mildred and Chester. [1] [3] (Eldest son Dan would later become the first appointment to West Point from Alaska and an All-American football right tackle in 1909, as well as a colonel in World War I. [3] )
By 1881, her husband was reportedly the richest man in Clallam County. He lost his fortune on court costs while trying to steal the Quileute Indian Reservation. [4] [5] She left her children with friends in Seattle and traveled to Skagway to earn enough money to support them. [2]
Arriving in Skagway in early 1897 with only $7 (according to her), she quickly found work as a cook for the workers of Captain William Moore, one of the founders of the settlement. [6] In her spare time, she took discarded tin cans and beat them into pie pans. She baked and sold apple pies to prospectors passing through on their way to the Klondike Gold Rush. [6] She used her profits to start a freighting company, which provided transportation on the White Pass trail. [6] When the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad opened, her business waned, so she purchased a house from Moore and turned it into the luxurious and very successful Pullen House Hotel. [2] With her finances secured, she sent for her children. [2] Her husband arrived sometime later, but left, seeking his own fortune in the Klondike. [2] She became famous for her hospitality and acquired the nickname "Ma". [6]
Pullen was also a suffragist. [7] A women's suffrage bill was the first bill passed by both the House and Senate of the Alaskan Territory, being signed into law on March 21, 1913. [8] After the bill passed, she used a wagon, called the "Pullen House Bus", to help women reach polling locations in Alaska. [9] Pullen supported temperance and her wagon had a sign that read, "Vote Dry and Protect Your Home." [10]
When she died in 1947, she was buried near her hotel.
Her great-granddaughter Eleanor Phillips Brackbill wrote a biography about her, The Queen of Heartbreak Trail: The Life and Times of Harriet Smith Pullen, Pioneering Woman. [11]
The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with the large number of summer tourists each year. Incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007, it was previously a city in the Skagway-Yakutat-Angoon Census Area. The most populated community is the census-designated place of Skagway.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
The White Pass and Yukon Route is a Canadian and U.S. Class III 3 ft narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route.
The District of Alaska was the federal government’s designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884, to August 24, 1912, when it became the Territory of Alaska. Previously (1867–1884) it had been known as the Department of Alaska, a military designation.
The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.
Chilkoot Pass is a high mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains in the U.S. state of Alaska and British Columbia, Canada. It is the highest point along the Chilkoot Trail that leads from Dyea, Alaska to Bennett Lake, British Columbia. The Chilkoot Trail was long a route used by the Tlingit for trade.
White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, is a mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the border of the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, Canada. It leads from Skagway, Alaska, to the chain of lakes at the headwaters of the Yukon River.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II was an American con artist and gangster in the American frontier, and ultimately the Klondike.
Martin Itjen is most famous for being the unofficial premier tour director of Skagway, Alaska in the early 1900s. He held many distinct titles, including that of miner, railroad employee, hotel operator, hack service, the town's undertaker, Ford motor car dealer, and a tour guide. Much of Skagway's early history was saved from destruction because of his interest in the city.
Esther Pohl Lovejoy was an American physician and public health pioneer, suffrage activist, congressional candidate, and a central figure in early efforts to organize international medical relief work. In 1907, Lovejoy became the first woman appointed to direct a department of health in a major U.S city: the Board of Health in Portland, Oregon. Lovejoy worked on the women's suffrage campaigns in Oregon in 1906 and 1912, and founded the Everybody's Equal Suffrage League ahead of the 1912 election, when Oregon became the 7th state to grant women the right to vote. Lovejoy was among the founders of the Medical Women's International Association and was elected as its first president in 1919. Lovejoy ran for the U.S. Congress in 1920 as the Democratic candidate for Portland’s Third District but was not successful against the sitting Republican. She was awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal by the American Medical Women's Association in 1951 and 1957 for contributions to the field of medicine. On July 21, 2012, the Century of Action Committee honored her and three other suffragists—Harriet Redmond, Harry Lane, and Martha Cardwell Dalton—by installing new headstones for them at the Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery, where their initial headstones had become overgrown. The installation ceremony included costumed portrayals of the four suffragists and was attended by Barbara Roberts, a former Oregon governor. This event took place as part of the Century of Action Committee's year-long celebration of 100 years of suffrage for women in Oregon and as part of their efforts to call attention to remaining voting barriers for minorities.
The Shootout on Juneau Wharf was a gunfight between Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith, Frank H. Reid, and Jesse Murphy that took place on Friday, July 8, 1898, at approximately 9:15 p.m. in Skagway, District of Alaska, in the United States. Smith was shot in the heart and died shortly afterwards, and Reid died of his injuries 12 days later.
Crystal Brilliant Snow Jenne was the first woman to run for the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives in the Alaska Territory.
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
The Skagway–Fraser Border Crossing connects the communities of Skagway, Alaska and Carcross, Yukon on the Canada–United States border. Alaska Highway 98 on the American side joins Yukon Highway 2 on the Canadian side. The border is near the summit of White Pass on the Klondike Highway, where the elevation is 3,292 feet (1,003 m). The border divides Alaska Time Zone from Pacific Time Zone. The highway, completed in 1979, was initially seasonal, but has been open year-round since 1986.
Lindeman Creek, formerly known as One Mile River connects Bennett Lake to Lindeman Lake, areas on the Chilkoot Trail in far northwestern British Columbia, Canada.
Women's suffrage was won fairly easily for non-native women in Alaska in 1913. Prior to becoming a territory, non-native women were able to vote in school board elections. Women's suffrage work took place in the Alaska chapters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). After Alaska was admitted as a territory, the first Territorial Legislature passed a women's suffrage bill in 1913 and was signed into law on March 21. This law only applied to non-native women since Alaska Natives were not considered citizens of the United States. Alaska Natives continued to fight for the right to vote, along with other civil rights throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century.
Robert Edwards Sheldon Jr. was an American automobile enthusiast, businessman, government official and politician. As a boy, Sheldon accompanied his father to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush and remained there the rest of his life. He built the first automobile in Alaska, was the first to drive an automobile from Fairbanks to Valdez, and championed the construction of roads in Alaska as the state road commissioner. Sheldon served in two sessions of the Alaska Territorial Legislature and two terms in the Alaska State Legislature. He was variously a power company engineer, the postmaster for Fairbanks, the general manager for the Mt. McKinley Tourist & Transportation Company, and the executive director of the Unemployment Compensation Commission of Alaska.
The Days of '98 Show is a Klondike Gold Rush–themed musical theater show performed in Eagles Hall in Skagway, Alaska. It is the longest-running Alaskan theatrical show. Created in the 1920s, the show was put on by the Skagway chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles and performed infrequently in the 1930s. By the mid-20th century, the show was performed frequently in the summer, particularly on days when cruise ships and passenger ships docked. It was staffed by unpaid locals and used to fundraise for various causes including a local hockey team, an elderly care facility, and Christmas toys for all Skagway children.