b:ge_black
George S. Black (1893 – 1953)
George Black was born in Seattle to Nels and Anna Black who lived in Skagway from 1900 to 1910. Black was a clerk and a wood sawyer in Skagway before he started his career as a ship’s captain.1) From 1918 to 1926 Black operated the steamer Pioneer out of Dawson, and built a new steamer also called Pioneer. [At some point after that he moved to Fairbanks.] In the next years he built or bought several more boats: he bought the Bertha in the late 1920s; he built the Kusko In 1930; and he bought the Idler which had diesel engines in 1935.2)
Captain George Black of Fairbanks was known to his Skagway friends as Stormy Black. In 1938, he was awarded the Dawson to Nenana and the Nulato to Wiseman summer mail contracts. Black was operating three boats at that time - the Idler, the Bertha, and a gas motor launch.3) In 1953 he built the steel-hulled Yutana. Black drowned on the last trip of the season. He had been a captain on the Yukon and Tanana rivers for thirty-seven years.4)
1)
“George S. Black.” Skagway Stories, 8 September 2011. 2019 website: http://www.skagwaystories.org/2011/09/08/george-s-black/
2)
, 4)
Jerry E. Green, Yukon Riverboat Captains. 2019 website: http://www.users.miamioh.edu/greenje/#B
3)
The Whitehorse Star (Whitehorse), 4 March 1938.
b/ge_black.txt · Last modified: 2024/10/04 11:39 by sallyr