Charles M. Hatfield (1875 – 1958)
Charles Hatfield was born in Fort Scott, Kansas and his family moved to southern California in the 1880s. He was a salesman for the New Home Sewing Machine Company. In 1902, Hatfield developed a method for producing rain using twenty-three chemicals in large evaporating tanks. His first attempt in 1904 was successful and a group of Los Angeles ranchers paid him $100. His next attempt in the same area netted him $1000.1)
Nine of the larger Yukon mining companies, mostly hydraulic, approached the territorial government in 1905 with a proposal to hire a professional rainmaker. The Territorial Council agreed and a $10,000 contract was prepared to hire Charles M. Hatfield from California. Hatfield and his assistant arrived in Dawson during an early summer hot spell in 1906. By June 11th, he was set up on King Solomon’s Dome with a tall tower and containers of chemicals and devices for sending them into the atmosphere. As he began, threatening clouds gathered around but the fulminations only produced two small showers of 6 mm on the 15th and 17th. Chief Isaac, perhaps half seriously, said Hatfield’s failure was due to the power of the First Nation’s four medicine men. He claimed he would stop the rain until Hatfield was dismissed, and that his, Chief Isaac’s, medicine men could produce “oceans of rain” for just $5,000.2)
The American rain-maker never did succeed in making Klondike rain and Hatfield was granted $1,153 from the territory as its liability.3)