William Salmon & August Conradt

William Salmon and August Conradt. The First Stampeders to Arrive in Fairbanks. , Felix Pedro's gold discovery here in the summer of 1902 sparked a stampede to Fairbanks from other surrounding gold camps in Alaska and the Yukon. The first official stampeders to arrive in Fairbanks were William Salmon and Gus Conradt, who mushed into Fairbanks from Rampart at 5:00 pm on December 25, 1902. Conradt was also the first stampeder to arrive to the Livengood strike in 1914. During the summer of 1908, Salmon and Conradt struck it rich on Ester Creek. Years later, Conradt recalled the 1903 Thanksgiving dinner he attended at Chena Town, located at the mouth of the Chena River:, "The bird had been brought North alive before the close of navigation a few months previously from the states. The fowl was scrawny, as food of every kind was none too plentiful in those days, the bird was not fattened for the table, but was killed as soon as cold weather set in, put into a cache and kept there until Thanksgiving morning. Being too large for a Yukon stove oven, the creature was cooked with hot rocks in a hole in the ground for six hours. Then we threw away the turkey and ate the rocks.", [Photo caption reads] , Ester Creek 1908 -L to R: William Salmon, unknown, Joe Coyner, and August Conradt, Story provided by the Fairbanks Igloos of the Pioneers of Alaska..