Tom Chisholm

Tom Chisolm operated a successful saloon in Dawson at the corner of First Avenue and Second Street. An addition to Chisolm’s Saloon, the Aurora, was built next door in July 1898 and was open by September. It offered first class entertainment of the best music, dancing and a fine supper. It was at the corner of First Avenue and Second Street.1) Tom’s saloon advertised a full line of the best brands of wine, liquors and cigars.2) Chisholm built Dawson's first brick chimney in 1899.3) A man who was in Dawson in 1898/99 observed that Chisolm never wore anything on his head but a Panama hat, winter and summer.4)

Tom Chisholm gave an excursion to Forty Mile on the sternwheeler Bonanza King in 1899. He once found and brought back to Dawson, a man who was helpless because he had frozen his hands and feet. Bill McPhee, Bob Lowry, and Pat Galvin raised money for his relief. They were frustrated by the law in their attempt to give a benefit at a local theatre on a Sunday, so they circulated a subscription paper and $4,135 was raised. Joe Cooper took the money and accompanied the man outside on the steamer Tyrrell. The owners of the vessel gave the man a free first-class passage.5)

1)
“Dancing at the 'Aurora.'” Klondike Nugget (Dawson), 20 July 1898.
2)
Advertisement, Klondike Nugget (Dawson), 29 August 1898.
3)
Ken L. Elder, ed., “53. Yukon Saw Mill” and “54. Smith and Hobbs/Dawson Sawmill and Building Co.” in Study Tour of the Yukon and Alaska. Ottawa: Society for Industrial Archaeology, 1990.
4)
Jeremiah Lynch, Three Years in the Klondike. Chicago: The Lake Side Press. 1967: 182.
5)
Klondike Nugget (Dawson), July 1899.