Kathleen Rockwell (Klondike Kate) rolling a cigarette, probably in Seattle, 1937

• Main Author: Staff Photographer Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Entertainers > Washington (State) > Seattle; Women > Washington (State) > Seattle; Rockwell; Kathleen Eloisa; 1876-1957; Dawson City; Kathleen; Yukon; Dawson; Skagway; Whitehorse
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/imlsmohai/id/2140

Kathleen Eloisa 'Klondike Kate' Rockwell was a chorus girl from Kansas who moved west to join a vaudeville company. After a brief time working in Skagway and Whitehorse, she arrived in Dawson City and worked as an entertainer and dance hall girl. Dancing in elaborate dress, using 200 feet of red chiffon, and sporting her own red hair, she was billed 'The Flame of the Yukon.' After a series of broken marriages, in 1933 she married a Norwegian miner, Johnny Matson, who had been taken with her for thirty years. She remarried after his death in 1946. While her life in the 1920's after the Klondike was not interesting or profitable, she self-published and capitalized on her life using dramatic titles such as 'Queen of the Yukon,' 'Belle of Dawson,' and insisting that she was the real Klondike Kate. Kathleen Eloisa Rockwell also known as Klondike Kate and Kitty Rockwell [note from the Library of Congress Authority File]. Handwritten on image: Klondike Kate. Handwritten on sleeve: "Klondike Kate;" Rockwell, Kate; Matson, John, Mrs. Caption information sources: Women in Alaska's History; True Stories from the Yukon. Date photograph was filed at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (date of photograph and file date may differ by a month or more): December 6, 1937. 1 nitrate negative: b&w; 4 x 5 in.