How the Trumps struck Klondike gold: Donald's grandfather gave birth to family's glittering empire with seedy restaurant catering to loose-moralled men and women seeking their fortune



Not many people know it, but Donald Trump's glittering dynasty began with a seedy restaurant in the Klondike gold rush.

Thousands of miles from the Trump Tower, Donald's grandfather, Friedrich, carved out an opportunistic fortune that gave rise to the family's empire, known today the world over.



According to Canada's Up Here magazine, German-born Friedrich Drumpf arrived in the United States in 1885 at just 16, determined to make something of himself.

Friedrich Trump: Donald's grandfather, pictured, carved out a fortune in the Klondike gold rush Humble beginnings: Donald Trump's glittering dynasty began with a seedy restaurant

After six years in bustling New York City, working as a barber and living in tiny immigrant apartments with his sister and brother-in-law, he decided to venture west, trying his luck in Seattle.



The entrepreneurial 22-year-old changed his name to Fred Trump and launched his first business, a late-night restaurant in the sleazy end of the town. Here he learned to navigate the district's saloons, opium parlours, pawn shops and brothels.

Next he got his first taste of the phenomenon that was mining, setting up shop in the short-lived mining town of Monte Cristo, just north of the city.



In July of 1897, as word of a massive gold strike in the far north spread through Seattle, Fred took advantage, opening another restaurant catering to the thousands of stampeders who were chasing their fortunes.



Family affair: Donald Trump, centre, on his wedding day with bride Marla Maples, right, and his parents, left

Father: Fred Trump, right, made hundreds of millions in NYC real estate after his dad's early success in the restaurant game

In March 1898, after steadily preparing for his own journey, Fred set off, boarding a ship to Skagway.

Climbing towards the Canadian border, he and a similarly entrepreneurial friend named Ernest Levin pitched a tent on the frightening path known as Dead Horse Trail.

The pair began offering up hot, simple meals to the constant stream of prospectors passing through, with horsemeat one of their best sellers.

A few months later, the men had moved their premises from the lowly tent to a two-story building in Bennett Town they called the New Arctic Restaurant and Hotel.



The hotel stood out in the sea of tents surrounding it and according to the Trump family's biographer, its restaurant was decadent.

Dynasty: Donald Trump, centre, with children Donald Trump Jr., left, and Ivanka, right, built a glittering empire in his own right

'In the larder was salmon and an extraordinary variety of meats, including duck, ptarmigan, grouse, goose, and swan, as well as caribou, moose, goat, sheep, rabbit, and squirrel,' Gwenda Blair said.



'Incredibly, the New Arctic served fresh fruit: red currants, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, even cranberries. A small oasis of luxury, the Arctic’s menu was a vast improvement over what the two restaurateurs had been able to offer on the trail.'

A stampeder, however, painted a less wholesome picture of the lodgings, suggesting 'respectable women travelling alone' give it a wide berth.



TV star: Donald Trump, right with wife Melania Trump, is known the world over for his fortune and his catchphrase 'You're fired' on The Apprentice

'For single men the Arctic has excellent accommodations as well as the best restaurant in Bennett, but I would not advise respectable women to go there to sleep as they are liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings – and uttered, too, by the depraved of their own sex,' he wrote in a letter to the Yukon Sun newspaper, according to the Canadian magazine.

By 1897, a railroad now linked Skagway and Whitehorse and their Bennett Town location was no longer a thoroughfare, so Trump rebuilt the New Arctic on Whitehorse's Front Street.



According to Up Here, the premises were open around the clock, serving as many as 3,000 meals a day to the loose-moralled men and women cavorting in its bars and bedrooms.



But trouble was brewing for Trump as Levin, partial to his booze, began running debts up around the town.

After just over three years in the north, Trump, again ahead of the curve, cashed in and shipped out, as stampeders fled the area in droves.

After the Arctic's success, Trump left as a respectable businessman with a enough cash to travel to Germany where he found a wife and returned with her to New York City.



In 1905, his son Fred Jr, Donald's father, was born.



Fred Jr, inheriting his namesake's entrepreneurial spirit and benefiting from his hard work, went on to earn hundreds of millions as a New York City real-estate magnate after his father died in 1918 during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

