Marko Stijepovic, the third son of Mijo Stijepovic, was born in 1873 on a small hillside farm near Risan, in Montenengro. Marko’s home was in a Balkan province that was declared autonomous from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th Century and later liberated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878. After WWI, it became part of greater Yugoslavia. The hillsides where Marko grew up in were known for the growing of medicinal herbs and for meat smoking; both of these enterprises were the main vocations of the Stijepovic family. The local economy was poor, and like many young men, Marko wanted to find opportunity elsewhere.
The Bay of Kotor, a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea and often called Europe’s southern-most fiord, offered to many a springboard to the world. Overseas freighters would take on water and goods there along with passengers bound for North America, including stowaways. Some of those stowaways were young Balkan men wanting to avoid conscription into the Austrian Army. Others just wanted to start a new life in the New World. In 1892, Marko Stijepovic, at the age of 18, became a stowaway on a ship bound for the United States.
Shortly after he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, Marko traveled by train to Fresno, California, the center of a Balkan agricultural community. Somewhere along the way, his surname was changed to Stepovich, a practice common to many immigrants from eastern Europe. Building on his experiences growing up in Montenegro, Marko, still just a young man, worked in California agriculture for nearly five years, selling calves to ranchers and harvesting figs. He found Serbian woman to dry the figs and then sold the figs to customers in Colorado.
When news of the Great Klondike gold rush in Yukon, Canada reached the United States in the spring of 1897, Stepovich quit his agriculture business and purchased all-weather clothing, picks, shovels, gold pans, and other working gear in Seattle and boarded a steamer bound for the great north-country Gold Rush. His business plan was to sell gear to the thousands of prospectors traveling to the Klondike Rush. In the fall of 1897, Marko arrived in Dyea at the head of Chatham Straits by boat from Seattle and hired Tlingit packers to haul his considerable freight over Chilkoot Pass. The notorious outlaw Soapy Smith and his gang were patrolling the Chilkoot Trail and demanding toll money for rights to use the trail. Not to be coerced by the bandits, the 23-year old Marko and his hired men broke trail around Soapy Smith’s camp, thus avoiding the outlaws and their toll demands and then continued over Chilkoot Pass. Thereafter, Marko became known as ‘Wise Mike’ Stepovich, which stuck for the rest of his life. A Fairbanks eating establishment, Soapy Smith’s Restaurant, which is owned and operated by Nick Stepovich, one of Wise Mike’s grandsons, commemorates this event.
https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/stepovich.php
Contributor: island girl (47912076)
The Bay of Kotor, a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea and often called Europe’s southern-most fiord, offered to many a springboard to the world. Overseas freighters would take on water and goods there along with passengers bound for North America, including stowaways. Some of those stowaways were young Balkan men wanting to avoid conscription into the Austrian Army. Others just wanted to start a new life in the New World. In 1892, Marko Stijepovic, at the age of 18, became a stowaway on a ship bound for the United States.
Shortly after he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, Marko traveled by train to Fresno, California, the center of a Balkan agricultural community. Somewhere along the way, his surname was changed to Stepovich, a practice common to many immigrants from eastern Europe. Building on his experiences growing up in Montenegro, Marko, still just a young man, worked in California agriculture for nearly five years, selling calves to ranchers and harvesting figs. He found Serbian woman to dry the figs and then sold the figs to customers in Colorado.
When news of the Great Klondike gold rush in Yukon, Canada reached the United States in the spring of 1897, Stepovich quit his agriculture business and purchased all-weather clothing, picks, shovels, gold pans, and other working gear in Seattle and boarded a steamer bound for the great north-country Gold Rush. His business plan was to sell gear to the thousands of prospectors traveling to the Klondike Rush. In the fall of 1897, Marko arrived in Dyea at the head of Chatham Straits by boat from Seattle and hired Tlingit packers to haul his considerable freight over Chilkoot Pass. The notorious outlaw Soapy Smith and his gang were patrolling the Chilkoot Trail and demanding toll money for rights to use the trail. Not to be coerced by the bandits, the 23-year old Marko and his hired men broke trail around Soapy Smith’s camp, thus avoiding the outlaws and their toll demands and then continued over Chilkoot Pass. Thereafter, Marko became known as ‘Wise Mike’ Stepovich, which stuck for the rest of his life. A Fairbanks eating establishment, Soapy Smith’s Restaurant, which is owned and operated by Nick Stepovich, one of Wise Mike’s grandsons, commemorates this event.
https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/stepovich.php
Contributor: island girl (47912076)
Marko Stijepovic, the third son of Mijo Stijepovic, was born in 1873 on a small hillside farm near Risan, in Montenengro. Marko’s home was in a Balkan province that was declared autonomous from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th Century and later liberated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878. After WWI, it became part of greater Yugoslavia. The hillsides where Marko grew up in were known for the growing of medicinal herbs and for meat smoking; both of these enterprises were the main vocations of the Stijepovic family. The local economy was poor, and like many young men, Marko wanted to find opportunity elsewhere.
The Bay of Kotor, a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea and often called Europe’s southern-most fiord, offered to many a springboard to the world. Overseas freighters would take on water and goods there along with passengers bound for North America, including stowaways. Some of those stowaways were young Balkan men wanting to avoid conscription into the Austrian Army. Others just wanted to start a new life in the New World. In 1892, Marko Stijepovic, at the age of 18, became a stowaway on a ship bound for the United States.
Shortly after he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, Marko traveled by train to Fresno, California, the center of a Balkan agricultural community. Somewhere along the way, his surname was changed to Stepovich, a practice common to many immigrants from eastern Europe. Building on his experiences growing up in Montenegro, Marko, still just a young man, worked in California agriculture for nearly five years, selling calves to ranchers and harvesting figs. He found Serbian woman to dry the figs and then sold the figs to customers in Colorado.
When news of the Great Klondike gold rush in Yukon, Canada reached the United States in the spring of 1897, Stepovich quit his agriculture business and purchased all-weather clothing, picks, shovels, gold pans, and other working gear in Seattle and boarded a steamer bound for the great north-country Gold Rush. His business plan was to sell gear to the thousands of prospectors traveling to the Klondike Rush. In the fall of 1897, Marko arrived in Dyea at the head of Chatham Straits by boat from Seattle and hired Tlingit packers to haul his considerable freight over Chilkoot Pass. The notorious outlaw Soapy Smith and his gang were patrolling the Chilkoot Trail and demanding toll money for rights to use the trail. Not to be coerced by the bandits, the 23-year old Marko and his hired men broke trail around Soapy Smith’s camp, thus avoiding the outlaws and their toll demands and then continued over Chilkoot Pass. Thereafter, Marko became known as ‘Wise Mike’ Stepovich, which stuck for the rest of his life. A Fairbanks eating establishment, Soapy Smith’s Restaurant, which is owned and operated by Nick Stepovich, one of Wise Mike’s grandsons, commemorates this event.
https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/stepovich.php
Contributor: island girl (47912076)
The Bay of Kotor, a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea and often called Europe’s southern-most fiord, offered to many a springboard to the world. Overseas freighters would take on water and goods there along with passengers bound for North America, including stowaways. Some of those stowaways were young Balkan men wanting to avoid conscription into the Austrian Army. Others just wanted to start a new life in the New World. In 1892, Marko Stijepovic, at the age of 18, became a stowaway on a ship bound for the United States.
Shortly after he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, Marko traveled by train to Fresno, California, the center of a Balkan agricultural community. Somewhere along the way, his surname was changed to Stepovich, a practice common to many immigrants from eastern Europe. Building on his experiences growing up in Montenegro, Marko, still just a young man, worked in California agriculture for nearly five years, selling calves to ranchers and harvesting figs. He found Serbian woman to dry the figs and then sold the figs to customers in Colorado.
When news of the Great Klondike gold rush in Yukon, Canada reached the United States in the spring of 1897, Stepovich quit his agriculture business and purchased all-weather clothing, picks, shovels, gold pans, and other working gear in Seattle and boarded a steamer bound for the great north-country Gold Rush. His business plan was to sell gear to the thousands of prospectors traveling to the Klondike Rush. In the fall of 1897, Marko arrived in Dyea at the head of Chatham Straits by boat from Seattle and hired Tlingit packers to haul his considerable freight over Chilkoot Pass. The notorious outlaw Soapy Smith and his gang were patrolling the Chilkoot Trail and demanding toll money for rights to use the trail. Not to be coerced by the bandits, the 23-year old Marko and his hired men broke trail around Soapy Smith’s camp, thus avoiding the outlaws and their toll demands and then continued over Chilkoot Pass. Thereafter, Marko became known as ‘Wise Mike’ Stepovich, which stuck for the rest of his life. A Fairbanks eating establishment, Soapy Smith’s Restaurant, which is owned and operated by Nick Stepovich, one of Wise Mike’s grandsons, commemorates this event.
https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/stepovich.php
Contributor: island girl (47912076)
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