Walter Mayne Woodburn (b. 1873)
Walter Woodburn was born near Ottawa, Ontario.1) The Woodburn and Ogilvie families were original settlers from Ireland in Gloucester Township in the 1840s. Walter Woodburn and William Ogilvie’s son, Morley, were born in Glen Ogilvie and probably attended the same local schools. Woodburn graduated from Queen’s University in 1894 with the Gold Medal, and then apprenticed and graduated from the Ontario College of Pharmacy. He operated a pharmacy on Banks Street in Ottawa before joining the Klondike stampede in 1897. He came in on the Yukon River route via Seattle and St. Michael and was in Dawson by the end of July.2)
Woodburn was the manager of the Opera House in Dawson until the building burned down in 1900. He started Woodburn’s Drug Store in Grand Forks.3) In 1901, the Grand Forks post office was in Woodburn’s drug store at a rental fee of $25 per month. The postmaster, Dr. A.F. Edwards, resigned in July and Woodburn was appointed to take his place. It was recommended that daily service commence on 1 August 1901 and it was thought that Woodburn might have to hire a clerk if that went ahead.4) Woodburn was elected as the first mayor of Grand Forks in early December 1901. He was the choice of all forty voters and became the first and only mayor in the territory.5)
Woodburn staked a gold claim in 1901. He and Bertha Bense were married in February 1903, the same day his older brother was married in Ottawa. Walter and Bertha’s son Walter was born in June, the first baby born in Grand Forks. They sent him to Seattle with a nanny to be raised for his first five years, and the family reunited there in 1908 after Woodburn was bankrupt. Woodburn had several jobs in Seattle and eventually left for California and was seldom heard from again.6)
The Walter M. Woodburn fonds at the Yukon Archives is a collection of photographs from around 1898 to 1904, primarily of Grand Forks on Bonanza Creek and some mining activity. It also includes signed letters dated 1901, 1902, and 1903. These gave Woodburn power of office as a pharmaceutical chemist, and a postmaster, and gave him the ability to administer oaths and declarations.7)