The smoke of the cigarettes floated in the air of the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel, mixing with The smell of cheap whiskey and the sweat of gold seekers. Outside, in the streets of the Canadian city of Whitehorse, the snow seemed dirty while the newcomers to the Klondike, a territory on the border with Alaska, fought for a wealth opportunity. Inside, between risotes and bets, The men found comfort in hot food and in the company of a woman. They were the first years of the twentieth century.
The waiters wore roasted meat dishes to the crowded tables of adventurers who drank until unconsciousness. In the upper floors, behind barely ajar doors, the “rooms for ladies” promised another type of relief. Frederick Trump, German immigrant of cunning smile and excessive ambition, had discovered an irrefutable truth: in gold fever, true wealth was not in the mines, but in the pockets of the miners. And he knew how to exploit them.
What few would imagine in that place of games and pleasure is that this man, who had made his fortune offering alcohol, prostitution and meat of doubtful origin to the desperate, would be the Patriarch of a dynasty that, a century later, would give the United States one of its most controversial presidents. Because Frederick, the owner of the brothel converted, was none other than Donald Trump’s grandfather.
When he turned 16, he made a decision that would define his destiny: he fled from Germany to avoid military service.
The ambitious barber
Frederick Trump was born as Friedrich on March 14, 1869 in Kallstadt, a small town in Bavaria, Germany. His childhood was marked by poverty and disease. His father died when he was eight years old, leaving the family sunk in debts.
As the child was too fragile to work in the vineyards like his brothers, His mother decided to send him to his 14 years to Frankenthal to learn a lighter trade: the barbershop.
The young Friedrich spent years of apprentice under the iron discipline of a German barber, working from sun to sun, polishing his ability with scissors and razor razor. But there was something inside that burned it. The life of a humble hairdresser in a German town was not enough for him.
When he turned 16, he made a decision that would define his destiny: fled from Germany to avoid military service And he embarked towards America, leaving only a brief message to his mother.
Frederick arrived in New York in 1885 only with his barber tools. But He had a voracity of success.
His older sister, who already lived in the city, welcomed him, and almost immediately got him work in a German barber in the Lower East Side. For six years, he cut his hair and spoke to clients in a neighborhood full of immigrants, listening to stories of fortune and failurelearning that in America, success was a matter of cunning.
Of course he was not a man to settle for modest salary. New York seemed like a site too slow to its ambition. His opportunity came with the expansion to the west, where cities like Seattle promised riches to whom he had the value of risking.
Its exploit a lucrative business model: food, drink and women.
Gold fever
In 1891, with the savings he had accumulated, he moved there, then a hotbed of bets and debauchery, and bought his first business: a small restaurant in Washington Street, an area known for his activity of bars and brothels.
Under the discreet name of Dairy Restaurant, food served the workers of the port and the clients of the neighboring brothels. But his business hid something else: like the Arctic in the Klondike, The Dairy also offered “rooms for ladies.”
Seattle was just the first step. In 1894, when he heard rumors of a new gold fever in Monte Cristo, a mining town in the mountains of Washington, Trump sold his restaurant and moved to the area. There, he opened a inn where the same business model exploded: food, drink and women.
Frederick had a brief step through politics. In 1896, while he administered his inn, he was elected Justice of the Peace by 32 votes to 5. However, his mandate was ephemeral: when the mineral bonanza deflated and the workers left the area, Trump sold his properties and moved to the Klondike, in the territory of the Yukon, demonstrating that his true vocation was not to apply the law, but in finding the way he fits his favor.
There, in 1897, he opened the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel in Bennett, British Columbia. In an area where most gold seekers slept in tents and ate what he could, his business was a luxury. The menu offered fresh beef (although, according to reports of the time, it was often camouflaged horse meat) and rooms where miners could find some human heat. The success was resounding. Frederick expanded his business to Whitehorse, establishing a second, larger and lucrative second.
Donald Trump did not meet his grandfather Frederick, who died in 1918.Back with the pockets
By 1901, he was a decidedly rich man. But he did not make illusions, because he knew how to see the signs of a decline market. He knew that the Canadian government was pressing to close brothels and casinos. Before the new rules affect their business, sold everything and left the klondike with full pockets. As he used to say, “In any situation where there are many losers, there is always a way to win.”
Back in Germany, Frederick decided to settle in his hometown and marry Elisabeth Christ, a girl from the place. However, the Bavarian government had other plans. Upon discovering that he had illegally emigrated to evade military service, he was declared a traitor and his destiny was the banishment. With the aggregate of another sanction, the removal of German citizenship.
With few options, he and his wife returned to New York in 1905. There, he started again, this time investing in real estate in Queens and opening a hotel in Manhattan. In 1905 his son Fred Trump was born, who would follow his steps in the real estate business and, in turn, would raise a child named Donald.
Frederick Trump did not live to see the empire that his descendants would raise. In 1918, in the middle of the Spanish flu pandemic, he died suddenly at 49. His widow, took control of his investments and, along with his son Fred, expanded family businesses.
From the brothels of the Klondike to the properties of New York, Frederick left a legacy of cunning and brutal pragmatism. A century later, his last name would become synonymous with power when his grandson, Donald, arrived at the White House as President 45 of the United States. And as if Trump’s story was written by cycles, he would recover command again in 2025. In his family, it is clear, defeats are never definitive, only opportunities to return more strongly again and again.