| Summary: | On verso of image: Skagway: 3rd from left - Martin Itjen, driver of the scenic; 4th from left, Mother Pullen, a Klondike pioneer; right end, Capt. of the ship. Filed in Alaska--Cities/Locations--Skagway Harriet Smith Pullen was born March 1861 in Wisconsin. One of Skagway's founders, Captain William Moore, needed someone to cook for his crew of construction workers. When Harriet Pullen approached him, looking for any kind of work (she only had $7 in her pocket) she landed the job - at $3 a day. Enough to keep her going, if not enough to support her four children living with a friend back in Seattle. In her spare time she went around town scrounging discarded tin cans. She flattened the metal to make pie tins, then used the Moore kitchen to make apple pies, hawking them to hungry miners with a sweet tooth. Soon she had enough money put aside to have seven horses from her LaPush, Washington, farm shipped north to her. Obtaining some wagons, she went into the freight hauling business. Most of the men coming across the White Pass trail knew only slightly more about handling horses then they did about nuclear fission, and the mortality rate for the animals was horrendous. Harriet had the advantage of first-hand knowledge. As long as the supply of gold seekers held out, she was able to turn a handy profit, often as much as $25 a day. When the transportation business began petering out, she bought Moore's home from him around 1901, opened the Pullen House Hotel, and sent for her kids. Turned out she had a husband as well, Daniel Pullen, who worked as a logger. When he arrived, it was only to for a brief visit before setting out to make his own money in the gold fields. (By 1910, Daniel Pullen had returned to Clallam County, Washington, and worked as a laborer on a farm.) Now known affectionately as "Ma" Pullen, she began the task of making the Pullen House a luxury hotel, importing fine china and silverware, soft beds. and an even greater rarity, bathtubs. She then found time for a hobby, amassing a huge collection of gold rush memorabilia and regaling guests with tales of Skagway lore. When she died, on August 9, 1947, she was buried near the site of her hotel. Over the years, Pullen amassed a treasure trove of archeological and ethnographic objects. These objects were displayed in the lobby of her hotel, and guests from around the world both admired them and contributed to her holdings. Following her death, however, the hotel closed. By the early 1950s it reopened, under the supervision of Mary (Mrs. Max) Kopansky, Pullen's granddaughter.
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