1 Dollar - Elizabeth II The Klondike Gold Rush

The Klondike rush of 1896–99 was triggered when Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie, and George Carmack pulled gold from Rabbit Creek — soon renamed Bonanza Creek — in August 1896. News reached the outside world nearly a year later, when ships docked in Seattle and San Francisco carrying prospectors with sacks of raw gold, touching off a mass migration that brought roughly 100,000 people north, of whom perhaps 30,000 actually reached the Yukon goldfields. The Klondike produced an estimated $29 million in gold in 1900 alone, its peak year, before output collapsed sharply as the easily worked placer deposits were exhausted.

By then, the rush had already shifted to Nome, Alaska, draining Dawson City almost overnight.