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Jack McQuesten and Al Mayo met in
the mid 1860s and traded and trapped together in various parts of the country
before coming into the Yukon in 1872. In 1886 McQuesten, Mayo and associate
Arthur Harper established a post at the mouth of the Stewart River to supply
miners who were working the sand bars on the river. Miners continued to
move into the area with small stampedes to Johnson Creek (1894) and Haggart
Creek (1895). McQuesten and Mayo moved their trading post to the
confluence of the Mayo and Stewart rivers to supply those miners who were
further upstream. However, it was the Duncan Creek stampede in 1901,
followed by the 1903 discovery of silver in the same area that ensured
development would take place. A townsite was surveyed at the confluence of
the Mayo and Stewart rivers in 1903 and Gene Binet, an entrepreneur, came to the
town in late winter of 1903 and bought up lots. He began to construct a
hotel and store (photos below) and sold lots to other entrepreneurs.
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