Kate Rockwell found a special way to make a fortune in the Klondike. A gorgeous, red-haired chorus girl from New York, Kate heard about the Klondike in 1899, three years after the famous gold strike. She headed north, determined to become the “Belle of the Yukon”.
Link to another story “The Bride of the Klondike”
In Dawson she joined the Savoy Theatrical Company then a local promoter offered her a much more lucrative job as a dancer at the Palace Grande Theatre and at the Savory Saloon. She danced while newly rich miners tossed gold nuggets at her feet. She took a cut from every drink she sold and she averaged $750 a night.
The bartender at the Savory captivated her. A handsome Greek, Alexander Pantages, “…had the only clean-shaven face in the whole place.”
Kate loaned Pantages the money to open the Orpheum theater, and they brought vaudeville acts to Dawson. The house sold out regularly and the Orpheum made money. Pantages opened more theaters.
When the gold boom went bust, the couple pulled up stakes and took their money down to Seattle. They continued to open vaudeville theaters there and even invested in “flickers”, the new hand cranked movies.
In 1928, Pantages traded Kate in on a younger model—a violinist in one of Kate’s shows. After a legal and public relations battle of epic proportions, Pantages walked away with most of their money, and Kate went back to the Vaudeville Circuit.
Pantages build an empire, made himself extraordinarily rich. But he had a problem with a distinctly modern ring to it. A court convicted him in 1929 of raping a 17 year old dancer and sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
Tired at last of touring, Kate retired from the stage and bought a homestead near Bend, Oregon. A local celebrity with a slightly risqué reputation Kate spent the rest of her life there.
