Alonzo Rawson, of Des Moines, was born on November 18, 1864 and graduated from Iowa State University with a law degree in 1888. He worked in Seattle area until he went to interior Alaska as the legal representative of the North American Transportation and Trading Co. The Company sent him to set up a post on the Yukon River at Melosikikat, which is north of Ruby on the north side of the river. In June 1899 he floated down the Yukon to St. Michaels expecting to return home. As there were no other attorneys there he stayed to practice law. After the Nome gold strike he was appointed U.S. Commissioner and soon thereafter, first municipal judge in the district of Nome. Rawson was also the first mayor of Nome. His fiancee, Gertrude Witmer, joined him in Nome in the fall of 1900 where they were married. He returned to Des Moines to attend to business, became ill and died there on May 20, 1904 at age 39.