Golden Days

The Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Comme is preparing for Fairbanks’ largest summer celebration – Golden Days. Our theme this year is "49th Year, 49th State: Celebrating in the Golden Heart". The following explains the events that lead to the historical July 22nd Golden Days date.

Felice Pedroni was born in Italy. He’d been prospecting in the hills around the Tanana Valley, in the interior of Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush in Yukon Territory, Canada.

In 1898, as Felix tried to reach Circle City, he found himself lost and nearly out of food, when he stumbled across the richest gold-bearing creek he had ever seen.

He and his partner marked the find and continued on to Circle City. He needed to earn money for supplies. He searched for years, but never found his way back to Lost Creek.

Three years later, he and Tom Gilmore were in the hills, still searching for gold in other creeks. On August 26, 1901, once again out of provisions and exhausted, they began the 165 mile walk back to Circle City. From the top of a hill, Pedro and his partner saw the smoke from the LaVelle Young hoping the men on board had extra food to sell.

Meeting the miners and learning that there were other prospectors in the area persuaded Captain Barnette to set up a trading post. Barnette’s original destination was to move his goods to Tanacross, but he never made the move. Barnette had promised Federal Judge James Wickersham that he would call the new settlement Fairbanks, in honor of Charles Fairbanks, a Republican senator from Indiana whom the judge greatly admired.

In return, Wickersham, who was the most powerful government official in 300,000 square miles, promised to help Barnette succeed.

It was on July 22, 1902 when Felix Pedro struck gold in a creek 12 miles north of E. T. Barnette’s Trading Post, placing Fairbanks on the map and creating a golden legacy.