Felix Pedro

Felice Pedroni was born on April 16, 1858, in Fanano, in the Apennine mountains of northern Italy, the youngest son of a poor farming family. He emigrated to the United States in 1881, worked in mines and on railroads across the country, and gradually made his way north, prospecting in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska under the Hispanicized name Felix Pedro.

After years of near-misses, including a promising 'lost creek' he could never relocate, Pedro was prospecting the hills of the Tanana Valley when he met E.T. Barnette, whose trading post had been stranded on the Chena River in 1901. On July 22, 1902, Pedro struck gold on a stream since known as Pedro Creek, about twelve miles north of the post. His reported announcement to Barnette's men became famous, and word of the find, energetically promoted by Barnette, drew a stampede to the Tanana in 1903. The camp that grew around the trading post became Fairbanks, and the district eventually produced millions of ounces of gold.

Pedro worked his claims but never enjoyed a long retirement. He died in Fairbanks on July 22, 1910, eight years to the day after his discovery. Rumors that he had been poisoned persisted for decades; his body was exhumed in 1972 and reburied in his native Fanano. A monument on the Steese Highway marks his discovery, and Fairbanks still celebrates Golden Days in his honor.