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.
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.
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.
