“Apple Jimmy” Oglow (1867 – 1941)
Jimmy Oglow was of Greek ancestry, and he used a simplified version of his name in the Yukon. He was probably born with a last name that ended in “oglou, a Anatolian Greek suffix from the Turkish language that means “son of.”1) Jimmy came to the Yukon in 1898 and in 1901 was a successful pedlar living at the Aurora Hotel on Front Street.2) He acquired the nickname “Apple Jimmy” in the early days when he sold apples for a dollar each.3)
In 1909, Oglow was running two fruit and candy stores on King Street in partnership with George Sarantis. Their business dissolved in 1910 and in 1911 Jimmy was operating Jimmy’s Place in the Orpheum Theatre. In 1921, his store was advertised as the largest fruit, confectionary, cigar and tobacco store in the north.4) In March 1939, Jimmy Oglow announced his retirement after being in business on First Avenue in Dawson for thirty-one years.5) In May 1939, Oglow’s friend Alexander Pantages was in Dawson making preparations for a grand re-opening of the store where Oglow again hoped to specialize in fruit.6)