The early history of dudes in Alaska

Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

In 1884, President Chester A. Arthur appointed Ward McAllister, Jr. (1855-1908) as the first district judge assigned to Alaska. McAllister’s brief yearlong tenure was marked by logistical issues and an unceasing series of complaints about his performance. His most notable critics were Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson and U.S. Commissioner John Brady, the latter a future governor of Alaska. In 1885, Brady wrote that McAllister “was less than 30 years old, was an Eastern dude ... with his little velvet jacket, high collar, gloves and dandy cane. I tell you he was a rare curiosity in Sitka.”

As a term, “dude” is inextricably linked with American history, from its origin through all the twists and turns of its linguistic evolution. Before dude, there was “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” the 18th-century song originally meant as an insult toward the American colonies before its eventual adoption as a patriotic anthem. In this usage, “doodle” likely derived from the German “Dödel,” meaning a foolish person. And “dandy” meant men who prioritized their appearance and grooming to a non-masculine extent.

As the rhyme states, “A Yankee Doodle went to town / A-riding on a pony / Stuck a feather in his cap / And called it macaroni.” Sing it out loud if you know the tune. Here, “macaroni” was an insult, essentially a pejorative way of describing dandies. Put it all together, and the song is mocking Americans who thought they could imitate the classier, refined English fashion and manners. The titular fool thought sticking a feather in his cap was enough to make him look like a fancy man, like a nobleman.

In 1891, prominent Chicago lawyer Henry Dodge Estabrook (1854-1917) journeyed to Alaska, an experience he documented in an article for the American Angler. Some of his most colorful observations were of other travelers. He was a people-watching kind of tourist. On the deck of his steamship, off the coast of Alaska, he noticed one man who particularly aroused his disgust. He wrote, “Then there is one those epicene idiots, commonly called dudes, whose panties turn up at the bottom and whose nosey turns up at the end. Moreover, he examines icebergs through a monocle.”

“Dude” almost certainly derives from the Yankee Doodle Dandy version of “doodle,” first appearing in print in the latter half of the 19th century. In 1877, young artist Frederic Remington (1861-1909) pleaded with a friend for pictures from the American West. “Don’t send me any more (pictures of) women or any more dudes. Send me Indians, cowboys, villains, or toughs.”

In this usage, “dude” meant an overly fashionable man from the cities, an urban dweller out of place anywhere that lacked paving or an abundance of shopping options. The word became especially popular in the 1880s, as noted in an 1883 New-York Mirror tabloid article. “A new and valuable addition has been made to the slang vocabulary ... We refer to the term ‘Dood.’ For a correct definition of the expression the anxious inquirer has only to turn to the tight-trousered, brief-coated, eye-glassed, fancy-vested, sharp-toes shod, vapid youth who abounds in the Metropolis at present.”

Within a couple of years, the word was present in Alaska’s settler communities, as seen by John Brady’s example. As regards etymologies, it is essential to note that spoken usage usually predates written examples. Still, a tour through the early “dudes” of Alaska is illuminating and entertaining.

The Klondike gold rush meant many changes to the northern world, but among them was an influx of dudes into and through Alaska. There was even a contemporary song, “The Dawson City Dude March,” published in 1897, relatively early in the craze. In a tale as old as time, some already established Alaska settlers welcomed the newcomers with open scorn, simultaneous with trying to worm their way into cheechako’s pockets. It was a long-established tradition in the American West to take the fancier, imported fellows for all they were worth. Notorious gunslinger dentist Doc Holliday reportedly followed newly arrived dudes around Tombstone, Arizona while ringing a dinner bell.

Dudes were viewed the way some Alaskans now view tourists. They may be welcome, but at the same time, some Alaskans are happier when they’re gone. On Dec. 28, 1898, the Douglas Island News cheerfully advised, “There are no dudes in Douglas City.” With the onset of winter, such dudes were either already in the Klondike, back in the Lower 48, or dead.

In the 1890s, young prospector and frontier journalist Casey Moran worked his way north and found himself in Juneau for the first time. Per an account published in a 1907 Popular Mechanics article, he asked for a beer, which was served nearly warm. “Where’s your ice?” asked Moran. “We ain’t no fancy dudes,” was the frontier answer. “We never have no ice here in summer. You’d better drink your drink without ice or noise.” Moran was inspired to start an ice business there, selling it “by the pound, ton or berg.”

In modern terms, dudes were city slickers, sophisticated dwellers in their natural urban domains but woefully out of place in the American West and early American Alaska. While there were certainly vicious predators that prowled the streets of Boston and Philadelphia and Chicago and New York City in the 1890s, these were of a different type than those eager for fresh blood in the West. Those dudes who traveled too far from their natural environs opened themselves to risks beyond their comprehension. In short order, they learned, died, or fled. As the 1897 “Official Guide to the Klondyke Country and the Gold Fields of Alaska” declared, “It is no country for a dude or lazy man.”

Aspects of this meaning of “dude” survive in the term “dude ranch.” Dude ranches are ranches that focus on tourism, providing something of a ranch experience for visitors or lodgers. There are examples of what might be called dude ranches as far back as the 1870s as eastern Americans sought to sample an approximation of what life was like in the American West. It was the Wild West, but with the corners cut off and quite a bit more glamour. Dude ranches became increasingly popular in the early 20th century as the old cowboy lifestyle faded.

In 1902, the residents of Skagway gathered for a dance the night before Thanksgiving. It was meant to be a casual event, anathema to an appropriately attired dude. The Daily Alaskan noted, “It is desired that all who can will come in calico and overalls, no one will be barred from dancing during any part of the evening. If any city folks get a little axle grease on their dude ‘close,’ they needn’t kick.”

The negative impact of dudes upon a good time was a running joke in those first-20th-century years in Alaska. In the fall of 1903 alone, parties in wide distant Nome and Skagway each promised the absence of dudes. At a masquerade in Nome, “High collared dudes and underage counter-hoppers are to be excluded to make room for the more matured sourdoughs in overalls and rubber boots.” And at a Skagway dance, “City dudes will be barred, and a real rollicking good time had.”

The same qualities that made dudes undesirable among many of the less fancy folk of Alaska were yet somehow appealing to certain members of the opposite sex. Manners, fashionable attire, and good grooming were some of the defining traits of a dude, after all. A sourdough authenticity is nice and all but so is bathing. When Emma Kelly trekked to Circle in the early years of the new century, she took a picture of several signs in town. One advised, “Ladies Please Don’t Flirt With The Dudes.” Another sign asked, “Gentelmen (sic) Will Please Not Soil The Ladies Ball Dresses.” This is the quality of stock she was working with.

And the meaning of dude was still evolving, especially in a relatively isolated area like Alaska. Juneau could be a true city to Alaskans and a quaint outpost to more urban visitors. In a 1902 issue of Outing magazine, Robert Dunn recounted his journey to Alaska with the goal of smoking a pipe with his friend on the snowy slopes of Mount Wrangell, a boy’s trip in other words. In Valdez, an oldtimer told him, “Some yere outfit of dudes came in last year, sayin’ they was going to climb Wrangell. I’d as soon walk alone to the North Pole.” Dunn wrote, “Jack wanted to know what became of the dudes, but I wouldn’t let him ask, because any one who doesn’t come north for gold is a ‘dude’: and it’s a stigma.”

As the years passed, the negative connotations of the word “dude” were worn off; it was no longer an insult. In the 1910s, it was used to describe shoes in a positive way, that they were certifiably fancy footwear. In a 1971 article for the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Mike Jahn wrote, “(Dude) does not mean ‘tenderfoot,’ as it once did. It now is used to refer positively to somebody. ‘Charlie’s a nice dude.’ Occasionally it’s used as a neutral noun, so you can call someone a ‘strange dude.’”

As the differences between urban and rural residents in the country decreased, a dude was just a guy. A good dude or bad dude, they are all dudes. I am a dude and am surrounded by dudes, in Anchorage or any other town in Alaska.

Key sources:

Dunn, Robert. “Finding a Volcano and Wiping a 16,000 Feet Mountain from the Map of Alaska.” Outing, December 1902, 311-332.

Estabrook, Henry D. “From the Mississippi to Alaska.” American Angler, December 1891, 99-119.

Jackson, Sheldon. A Statement of Facts Concerning the Difficulties at Sitka, Alaska in 1885. Washington, D.C.: Thomas McGill & Co., 1886.

Jahn, Mike, “Are You Hip?” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, July 11, 1971.

Kelly, Emma Leonidas. “Woman’s Endurance in Alaska.” Illustrated Outdoor World and Recreation, September 1912, 62-65.

“Make Way.” [Skagway] Daily Alaskan, October 25, 1903, 1.

“Masque Carnival Tonight.” Nome Nugget, August 29, 1903, 1.

The Official Guide to the Klondyke Country and the Gold Fields of Alaska. Chicago: Wabash Publishing House, 1897.

“Selling Icebergs in Alaska.” Popular Mechanics, August 1907, 877.

“‘Tis Said on the Quiet.” Douglas Island News, December 28, 1898, 3.

[Untitled article]. Douglas Island News, November 26, 1902, 4.