One important corection and significant aspect of the Gold Rush which you did not mention, was not that the Klondike Gold Rush was not important, of course it was. But, it couldn't have been a booming success without two major things in place:

1. The Railroad had come to Seattle a few years prior to the announcement of Gold. It made it possible for tens of thousands of would-be prospectors to get to Seattle so they could be outfitted and boarded onto the miriad of vessels headed for Alaska.

2. The Chamber of Commerce appointed Erastus Brainard to be the promoter, PR generator and one man marketing campaign which brought the thousands to Seattle. Without these two elements, the Gold Rush would have been a flash in the Pan (pun). As it turned out, the Gold Rush was the primer to the pump of growth, which only lasted a few years. The important growth followed , thanks to the Railroad, which allowed goods and services to come and go by land as opposed to Sail. It opened up and connected Seattle to the whole nation and world.

Helping also was the impact of the Spanish American War which found Seattle's harbor very well equipped to service and build war ships. That's what spurred the Moran Brothers to transition from building Klondike transport vessels to create the shipyard that is known today as Todd shipyard. I could go on.

This point of history was a magnanimous time and event in the history of the Pacific Northwest. When one looks at the people who honestly contributed to making that event happen, Carmack's name would fall on the bottom of the list. Except for covertly filing his clain, his life was one of a lack of moral character, deceit, caddishness, boasting, lying and generally unethical behavior that I find hard to find a reason why his name has come up and proposed to be given Landmark status. If it wasn't for his 2nd wife, Margarite, his first being a common-law-marriage to a Tagish Native who he abandoned and gave nothing of his estate, he would have spent all his money on non-producing mining attempts in the Cascades. It was Margarite who bought property for income purposes, which was the only income that the Carmacks derived from Seattle investments. George Washington Carmack did nothing productive or of note in his whole life.
In the bigger picture, while Seattle benefited from the Rush by outfitting the mass of vunerable souls trying to better their life, hardly any of them made it to the gold fields. They died of exhaustion, froze, were mamed by frostbite, and came back poored than when they left. The few who made the money, got in on the beginning before the world even knew about the claim. If anything, Seattle should construct a monument to the thousands of poor souls who didn't foind the Gold Rush anything but a horrible event that they were sorry to have particpated in.

Arthur M. Skolnik FAIA

Why does history need to be pretty? Mr. Skolnick seems to think so. That George Washington Carmack was not the most upstanding citizen of Seattle, does not make him less a part of our history. Whatever he may have done, and whether or not it was his common law wife Kate who pulled the first nuggets from Bonanza Creek, George Carmack was a significant figure in the Klondike Gold Rush. Doc Maynard was not the most upstanding citizen of our young city, either, yet he is certainly a significant part of our history.

Certainly, other factors contributed to Seattle's growth as Mr. Skolnick implies. But we must not forget the founding of such businesses as Nordstrom, CC Filson, and others, because of the Klondike Gold Rush.

As to the actual home of George Carmack, it is history. It is not some grand victorian, but a comparatively simple home, an example of the once numerous homes from the period that housed Seattle's citizens.

Finally, since when is there a time limit on how long someone lives in a structure before it becomes significant? Poet Robert Service lived in a small cabin in Dawson City less than ten years, and it has been lovingly preserved. Jack London's cabin, which he lived in only a very short time, was located and preserved.

Let's not rewrite our history in the quest for some grand story. George Carmack may not have been the most sterling character, but he is part of our history, and his home needs to be preserved.

It seems pretty obvious to me - without the filing of a claim, there is no gold rush, and without the gold rush, Seattle is a different place. The Klondike Gold Rush is a significant event in the development of Seattle - who cares whether it is more or less signficant or depended as well on the arrival of the railroad or early civic boosterism?

How could it be that Carmack didn't "honestly" contribute to making that event happen? That's just history written by moralists and prudes.

About the significance of the house - did Carmack own any another place where he lived? By your telling, he was a lifelong wanderer, so it seems important to me that he bought a house in Seattle with Gold Rush booty and settled (for him) down.

No one is proposing to landmark Carmack's character. It's ironic in the extreme that the representatives of the property fighting the landmark nomination choose to act so much like the man you disparage.

BTW, would it be too much trouble for you to spellcheck your posts?

Looking at this dilemma through my prism as a former Chicagoan, I see parallels between Mr. Carmack and Mrs. O'Leary and her cow, who, according to Chicago lore, started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The difference is of course that Carmack is credited with constructing a great city, while Ms. O'Leary is pinned with destroying one. The similarity, however, is the creation of two urban myths, and society's unquenched thirst to "create" heroes and villains as spin-offs of their citys' pivotal events.

Mr. Skolnick in his comment points out eloquently that other great forces lead to the codifying of the Emerald City, not a man with a questionable moral and mining past who may (or may not) have been the focal point of Seattle's turbulence and eventual success.

Some Chicagoans say O'Leary was a scapegoat because she was Catholic and poor. The fire originated from her neighborhood. That's all we know for certain. But history has been recomposed and there, where O'Leary once lived, stands a plaque. (Ironically a fire station now sits in her barn's air-space.)

This story is flabbergasting, and I'm not sure what bothers me the most: The fact that a hired gun for property developers would be allowed to dispute the historical significance of George Carmack's house, or that the Seattle preservation board would know their city's history so poorly that they allowed themselves to be confused.

Victor Skolnick should have been laughed out of the room.

If you read the Seattle newspapers of the turn of the last century, it is clear that Carmack was one of the city's heroes. Not only did he launch the rush to the North that essentially built Seattle, he also contributed the gold nuggets that were embedded in the base of the telegraph key that President Taft tapped in order to launch the 1909 world's fair. (Kennedy used the same key for the same sort of thing in '62.) The latter point is kind of a sidelight, of course, but it shows the symbolic importance that Seattle placed on Carmack's deed.

Now, for anyone to claim that others were really responsible for the gold-rush boom, and that Carmack's role is minor, is to misunderstand Carmack and his world. First and foremost, Carmack is the one name we really can to associate with the origins of the Gold Rush, in the same way that we associate Sutter with that other rush in California. But just as important, Carmack was the focus of massive publicity as the years wore on. He was the first among many who made their fortunes in the North, he was the example for all the millions who hopped the steamers for Alaska and tramped around in the snow.

When the fun was over, Carmack did what so many of the others did when they made good. He came back to Seattle and bought a nice house. And thus, the importance of the house.

As far as the news media was concerned, the fact that most of the successful sourdoughs came back home, and a goodly number of them, like Carmack, chose to buy or build homes in Seattle, helped to cement Seattle's relationship with Alaska.

For Skolnick to come along, years later, and say his clients ought to be spared the trouble of preserving the Carmack House because Carmack led an immoral and dissolute life -- I can only shake my head in wonder at that.

But the fact that there is any dispute at all -- that there is any doubt whatsoever among the members of the board -- tells me that Seattle doesn't know its own history well enough. And maybe, by doing things like preserving the Carmack House, that problem can be remedied.

Anyway, Carmack's significance aside, the issue is really his house -- and the solution is so obvious that you can't blame Skolnick for trying to confuse things. Swedish Hospital wants the land, and no doubt hospital expansion is the highest and best use of the property. So just move the darned house!

Of course, that gets a little expensive; I'm sure the property owners don't want to pay for it, and Swedish doesn't want to pay for it, either, and so we get ridiculous and intellectually dishonest debates like this one.

Erik Smith

really is the guy who started it all, playing

, and it is clear that at that time Carmack was a local hero.