George Bounds

George Bounds was a relative of Willis Thorp, a Juneau butcher. In 1896 Thorp and his sons and George Bound drove forty to sixty head of cattle from Haines, Alaska destined for Forty Mile. They started near Haines in June and four months later they reached the Yukon River. Dalton and Thorp did not get along, perhaps because Thorp had said things against Dalton during his murder trial. Dalton kept Thorp off the Dalton Trail at gunpoint. Thorp left the expedition early because of ill health and Bounds and Thorp’s sons travelled a parallel route which became known as the Bounds Trail. They slaughtered the animals and barged the meat down river until they were frozen in at the mouth of the Klondike River. There were many hundreds of men there, excited by the new discovery on Bonanza Creek. The cattle drovers made $13,000 from the sale of their beef, and then they procured some very valuable claims on Eldorado Creek.¹⁾