In 1976 Congress made it official, establishing the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park around the preserved blocks of Broadway — wooden boardwalks, restored 1898 storefronts, and the old railroad depot — now the most-visited national park in Alaska. The cruise ships followed. Tucked at the head of a deep glacial fjord and ringed by steep peaks, Skagway is one of the busiest ports on the Inside Passage, with more than a million day-visitors a season stepping off onto the same waterfront the stampeders once crossed. It is a gold-rush boomtown that found its second fortune in being remembered.
Skagway voted to incorporate on June 28, 1900 — the first incorporated city in Alaska, beating Juneau to it by a single day — with a census population of 3,117. Then the gold was gone. By 1910 fewer than 900 people remained, and for half a century Skagway lived quietly off the railroad, hauling freight to Whitehorse and back. What saved it was its own past: the false-front downtown had never been torn down, and as Alaska tourism grew, travelers came specifically to walk a Gold-Rush street that looked almost exactly as it had in 1898.
Why People Visit Skagway
Visitors come to Skagway for the most intact Gold-Rush town in Alaska — a real boomtown you can walk through — and for the railway that climbs straight out of it into the mountains. It is compact, dramatic, and easy to explore on foot, with the harbor, the historic district, and the trailheads all close together. Equal parts living history and big northern scenery, Skagway rewards anyone who wants to stand at the starting line of the Klondike stampede.
