Nordstrom left Sweden with two friends when he was 16. They traveled by boat to Hull, England, and then by train to Liverpool, where they began a ten-day voyage as steerage passengers to New York. From there, Nordstrom took a train to Stambaugh, Michigan, where a cousin helped him get a job loading iron ore onto railroad cars. This was the first of many manual jobs he held over the next five years. Nordstrom moved westward through Iowa, Colorado, California, and Washington, performing such back-breaking work as logging, coal mining, gold and silver mining, loading railroad ties, and carting bricks. In 1896, he settled in Arlington, Washington, about 50 miles north of Seattle. Nordstrom was one of many Swedish immigrants in the town. He started a potato farm on 50 acres of land and began courting a Swedish woman named Hilda Carlson.
A year later, the Seattle Port-Intelligencer reported that gold had been found in the Yukon territory. Like many West Coast residents, Nordstrom traveled north to seek his fortune. He took a coal freighter to Port Valdez, Alaska, and then traveled 1,000 miles on horse and on foot to Dawson in the heart of the gold fields.
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