Belinda Mulroney Carbonneau, a coalminer's daughter from Pennsylvania, crossed the Chilkoot Pass in the spring of 1897 with $5,000 worth of silk underwear, cotton goods, and hotwater bottles. When she arrived in Dawson City, she threw her last half-dollar in the river, vowing she would never need small change again. She sold the goods she had brought at a profit of six hundred percent.
Thus began one of the most successful business careers of the Gold Rush. In the summer of 1897 Belinda built the Grand Forks Hotel at the corner of Bonanza and Eldorado creeks. She picked up information from her customers and soon owned or had an interest in at least five claims, and a partnership in the wealthy Eldorado-Bonanza Quartz and Placer Mining Company. Next she built the Fair View Hotel, Dawson's finest. The hotel opened in July 1898, taking in $6,000 at the bar in the first 24 hours.
In 1900 Belinda met and married Charles Eugene Carbonneau, a French champagne salesman who called himself a count. By then she was manager of the territory's largest mining company, the Gold Run Mining Company. Belinda and her husband spent their summers in Dawson City, managing their mining interests, and their winters in Paris, where they invested shipping. In 1906 Belinda divorced Charles, possibly because he had been charged with embezzlement and fraud.
In 1910, she settled in Yakima, Washington, and built a stone castle to live in. However, she lost much of her fortune when the First World War ended merchant shipping. She died in Seattle in 1967 at the age of 95.
