Our Story: The Gold Rush
Columbus-Born Businessman Heads to Alaska's Gold Mines

Next Spring, the Columbus Jewish Historical Society will present a seven-week exhibition entitled "170 Years of Jewish Life in Central Ohio, 1840-2010," which will include highlights of the lives of those from Columbus who helped settle and develop the West. One of those people was Max Hirschberg, whose father, Rudolph, was president of B'nai Israel (now Temple Israel) from 1878 to 1881. (Hirschberg's uncle, Levi, was the owner of Great Western Clothing Stores in Newark with branches in Central and Northwestern Ohio, while his other uncle, Bernard, was a founding partner of the Strouss Hirschberg Department Stores in Youngstown.)

The exhibit will be accompanied by a traveling display, "From the Mountains to the Prairies - 350 years of Kosher and Jewish Life in America," which focuses on the story of Jewish migration across the United States and how Jewish dietary laws were followed from the earliest arrivals of Jews in the mid-17th century into the last century. The traveling exhibit was developed by Rabbi Yaakov Y. Horowitz, founder of American Jewish Legacy, a nonprofit historical organization, and supervising rabbi of the B. Manischewitz Company.

Both exhibits will open at the JCC on April 12, 2010. "Throughout the exhibition, we're planning to have lectures, films, art, theatrical productions, contests, and musical activities," said Toby Brief, CJHS project chair.

"Hirschberg's story is fascinating - not only because he was born in Columbus, but because his adventurous, entrepreneurial spirit carried him from owning a small business in New York to traveling to Nome, Alaska on a bicycle to become a mine owner and purveyor of the Arctic Mining and Trading Company," she said.

Max's Story

In 1900, America was on the move. The phrase, "Go west, young man," was the mantra for early 20th century American migration, and Max Hirschberg was no exception.

Hirschberg was born in Columbus on March 25, 1877 and educated in Columbus and Youngstown High Schools. In 1893, his family moved to New York, where he first became a business owner by obtaining a little print shop. As the incandescent light was being developed, Hirschberg had an ambition to become an electrician and eventually obtained employment at the Incandescent Electric Light Company of New York, where he gained practical knowledge of the electrical business.

At the height of a significant series of financial recessions and bank failures which caused widespread unemployment in 1897, many who were adversely impacted by the crises were motivated to try their luck in the gold fields of the Klondike. Hirschberg was no exception and decided "to see what he could do" to start a successful business in Alaska. Just shy of his 20th birthday and less than four years after moving to New York, he resolved to head to the Yukon. His first stop was in Youngstown, Ohio, where his aunt sewed $20 gold pieces into his belt.

Hirschberg then joined a party heading for Dawson City in the Yukon Territory of Canada. When he arrived at Juneau, Alaska, the season was growing late and the Dyea Pass to head north was blocked, so he decided to remain in Juneau until Spring. When the warmer season arrived, he and his party started over the Pass, but a disastrous snow-slide covered their entire outfit of 5,500 pounds of supplies. Only 50 pounds was recovered before they headed to the summit, where the remainder of their supplies were stolen.

Disgusted and discouraged, his associates headed back, but Hirschberg continued on to Dawson. Arriving there, he was unable to find work, but instead partnered with Hank West to open a small roadhouse. While in Dawson, he prospected on the Dominion and Sulphur Creeks.

In his memoirs, written in the 1950s, Hirschberg recalled, "In January 1900, I secured a dog team and an outfit to go over the ice, down the Yukon from Dawson to Nome. I sold my share in the roadhouse and my mining claims in Dawson. My partner, however, did not believe the reports were authentic about the gold strike in Nome. I did, so we parted."

While preparing for the journey, he roomed at the Green Tree Hotel, which caught fire. Hirschberg joined hundreds of others in forming a bucket line, passing buckets of water from the Yukon River to the hotel to quench the fire. In the dark and confusion, he stumbled on a board containing a rusty nail. "I went to the hospital with blood poisoning," he wrote in his memoirs. "It was March before I was up and around again, too late to get to Nome by dog team. With the spring thaw under way, the Yukon would be unfit for travel on the ice. I knew the news of the gold strike at Nome would bring thousands of people from the States to Nome by boat, so I had to get there quickly. I decided to travel by bicycle. I had been an expert bicycle rider for years, and I figured I could reach Nome before the Yukon became unfit for travel."

It took him roughly 10 weeks to travel the 1,200 miles from Dawson to Nome, during which he suffered through snow storms, dangerous ice melts, broken bicycle pedals, a near-drowning, snow blindness and a broken bicycle chain, before literally "sailing" into Nome on May 19, 1900. That fall, he went back to Youngstown to incorporate the Arctic Mining and Trading Company, before heading back to the Nome country in 1901 to start a store in Teller, Alaska. Out of the profits, he acquired mining property and a large number of tin claims. Thus, by being one of the large numbers of entrepreneurial adventurers flooding to the region during the Klondike Gold Rush, Hirschberg significantly contributed to the economic development of Western Canada, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. He remained in Alaska for many years, and eventually settled in Seattle, Wash. He died in 1964.

Interested? Make Plans to Learn More!

"If you think that this part of Max's story is amazing, there's a whole story of how he traveled to Nome by bicycle," said Brief. "You'll just have to make plans to come and see the exhibit when it is on display at the JCC."

The "170 Years of Jewish Life in Central Ohio, 1840-2010" exhibit is being supported in part by a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council.

Those with information and/or the desire to research Columbus' early German and Russian/Eastern European immigrants, or who may have artifacts from that era, are invited to help with the exhibition. For more information, contact Brief at (614) 238-0374 or via e-mail at tbrief@hotmail.com.