The thing that settled the contest, and outlived the gold, was the railroad. In May 1898 crews began blasting a narrow-gauge line straight up the coastal wall behind town — the White Pass & Yukon Route, engineered by the Irish-born contractor Michael Heney, who liked to say he could build a railroad anywhere a man could climb. Working with hand tools and black powder through brutal winters, they reached the 2,885-foot summit early in 1899 and drove the last spike at Carcross, in the Yukon, on July 29, 1900. By then the rush was fading, but the "Scenic Railway of the World" had given Skagway a permanent reason to exist — and today it is the town's signature excursion.
The man who saw it coming was Captain William Moore. A riverboat pilot and pack-trail veteran, Moore staked a 160-acre homestead at the mouth of the Skagway River in 1887 — a full decade early — convinced that gold in the Canadian interior would one day send a flood of people past his door looking for a way over the mountains. He built a sawmill, a wharf, and a rough trail toward the White Pass summit. When the stampede finally arrived in 1897, it simply overran him: newcomers re-platted his claim into a gridded boomtown almost overnight, and the quiet homestead became the busiest place in Alaska.
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.
