George Westbrook (1867 - 1954)
George Westbrook came to the Yukon from Georgia during the Klondike gold rush.1) He bought some land in the Klondike from Malcom McLaren in 1926, and sold it to Napolean Marcoux in 1938. Marcoux died without a will in 1954, and the land fell to the Public Administrator. Van Roggen and Neilsen, lawyers for the Big Inch Land Company, purchased the land and used it in a famous advertising campaign.2) George Westbrook died in hospital after a lengthy illness. 3)
The Great Klondike Big Inch Land Company was a company formed by Quaker Oats. They divided up the land into 21 million square inches of land and asked customers to send in a box top from their product to receive a 5 x 8-inch deed. When the law prohibited them from trading a box top for land, they put the deeds in every box of cereal produced. The deeds were not registered so were never legally binding, and they did not include mineral rights on the property. The 1955 promotion was tied to a radio show, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, that Quaker Oats sponsored.4)