First Nation hopes to lure tourists to B.C. ghost town where Donald Trump’s grandpa ran a brothel
First Nation hopes to lure tourists to B.C. ghost town where Donald Trumps grandpa ran a brothel
A First Nations band is planning to start luring tourists this summer to the northern B.C. ghost town where Donald Trumps pioneering grandfather once ran a brothel.
The Carcross Tagish First Nation, whose territory straddles the B.C.-Yukon border, is building a luxury wilderness camp south of that border, in the town of Bennett, which was briefly a hub for prospectors and others seeking their gold-rush fortunes, including one Frederich Trump, who established the Arctic Hotel there in 1899.
The Arctic Hotel was open 24 hours a day and boasted private boxes for ladies, which included a bed and a gold scale so customers could pay in nuggets, according to a multigenerational biography of the Trumps by U.S. author and journalist Gwenda Blair.
The bulk of the (hotels) cash flow came from the sale of liquor and sex, Blair wrote in her book The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire.
The elder Trump, who left his native Germany for North America as a teen, later moved his operation from Bennett to Whitehorse. He left the North altogether within three years, having amassed the seed money he would later use to plant the Trump fortune in the U.S.