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.
What rose on Moore's claim was extraordinary. Within a year Skagway went from a scatter of tents to a town of close to 10,000 — for a moment the largest settlement in Alaska — with a main street of false-front stores, outfitters, hotels, and saloons running wall to wall up Broadway. It was the supply depot for the whole stampede: nearly everything bound for the Klondike came ashore here first. A few miles west, a rival townsite called Dyea boomed at the foot of the steeper Chilkoot Trail, and for a season the two raced each other. When the railroad chose Skagway, Dyea emptied out and faded into the ghost town it remains today.
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.
