George DeLion

In 1899, George De Lion bought a large log structure in West Dawson owned by Miss E. VanBuren and Mrs. Roswell Hitchcock. Maurice and George De Lion were brothers and in business together and they bought many lots and cabins in West Dawson as did a Mrs. Jessie Jory. De Lion stated he was buying all the vacated cabins to use for firewood.¹⁾ The De Lions used the VanBuren and Hitchcock cabin as the foundation for the Hotel Villa De Lion. It was serviced by the ferry Dorothy [Marjorie?] which was owned by the business.²⁾ In November 1899, the Klondike Nugget newspaper announced that De Lion was preparing a skating rink in front of his Villa and proposed to string incandescent lights across the Yukon River.³⁾

The Monte Carlo was built in 1900 by George De Lion based on designs submitted by local architects. The decorative finishes on the outside of the building were completed by June 1901. Many thought the construction of such a fancy building was foolhardy but then they envied his foresight as the property became valuable Dawson real estate. The first floor was a large saloon leased to Murray, O’Brien & Powell. Small stores on either side of the saloon were occupied by Lindeman the jeweller and Pond and Shuman, each with large plate glass fronts. The upper story was leased by the Zero Club and there were two handsome front office rooms. Mr. De Lion owned practically all of West Dawson and was proud of his little steamer Marjorie that crossed the Yukon River every twenty minutes.⁴⁾

Mrs. Johanna (Josie) Jory was employed as cook, housekeeper, bookkeeper, general agent and manager for De Lion at the Monte Carlo between January 1900 and December 1902. Mrs. Jory’s husband, Edwin, left the Yukon in 1902 and they subsequently divorced. In July 1903, Jory filed charges of assault against De Lion and claimed damages of $2,000 but withdrew the charges before they went to court. A month later, she went to court to claim $6,000 in unpaid wages and there was salacious testimony that was commented on but not reproduced by Dawson’s Yukon Sun newspaper. The result was a hung jury. The retrial found in favour of Jory but awarded her much less that she claimed. After the trial, Jory harassed De Lion and was charged with unlawful entry into De Lion’s apartment in the Monte Carlo. On that occasion, Jory went to jail, leaving her 18-month-old son, Victor, with De Lion’s son Maurice. The Yukon Sun reported that the court case for this charge was so salacious that the courtroom was cleared. During the trial, Jory claimed that she and De Lion had been married in San Francisco and later before a rabbi. De Lion denied that they were married. Mrs Jory and her child left Dawson in 1904 but returned over the next six years to run the Sixty Roadhouse on Bonanza Creek. Victor Jory went on to become a well-known character actor in Hollywood.⁵⁾

F.C. Wade, Dawson’s crown prosecutor, called De Lion a Hungarian socialist. After prostitutes were removed from Dawson proper in 1901, some of them took up residence in Klondike City, in an unbroken row of twenty or more houses facing the town. The girls paid heavy rentals to De Lion who Wade thought represented more prominent men in the city. Wade stated that the situation was not chosen by the women or their managers, but by speculators in Dawson. ⁶⁾

In April 1903, George De Lion applied for twenty-five acres at Tantalus upstream from and adjoining the NWMP post and 5 miles north of Carmacks, for access to river for a coal mine located .5 miles behind this land.⁷⁾ De Lion had the coal property surveyed in 1903 and brought in four coal miners to run a 500-foot tunnel to the coal.⁸⁾ The application was cancelled due to non-payment.⁹⁾ Sgt. Thorne of the NWMP reported in 1903 that the coal mine known as the Porter coal mine, 15 miles south of Tantalus, was owned G. De Lion. Owing to the long distance to the river, Sgt. Thorn did not think De Lion would invest any more in its development and it was practically closed down. De Lion owned another coal mine immediately back of the “Hidden Treasure,” three quarters of a mile south of the Tantalus Detachment. When he and two men came up from Dawson to prospect the mine and find where it should be opened up, they found no sign of coal.¹⁰⁾

The Villa De Lion was still standing in 1912.¹¹⁾