National Register of Historic Places listings in Skagway, Alaska

Source: Wikipedia

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 Chilkoot Trail and Dyea Site

Date Listed: April 14, 1975

Location: Dyea to the Canada–US border

Town: Skagway

Description: A contributing property to Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

Expanded Description: The Chilkoot Trail and Dyea Site is a National Historic Landmark district comprising the Chilkoot Trail and the former town of Dyea, Alaska.

They are contained in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park which preserves the historic buildings and locations connected to the Klondike Gold Rush period of Alaskan history.

For a brief period between 1897 and 1899, this trail and town were full of prospectors.

By 1905, most of the buildings had been demolished or removed. Both the trail and the town site are part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

Dyea:

Dyea is a ghost town located at the convergence of the Taiya River and Taiya Inlet on the south side of the Chilkoot Pass within the limits of the Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska. During the Klondike Gold Rush prospectors disembarked at its port and used the Chilkoot Trail, a Tlingit trade route over the Coast Mountains, to begin their journey to the gold fields around Dawson City, Yukon, about 800 km (500 mi) away. Confidence man and crime boss Soapy Smith, famous for his underworld control of the neighboring town of Skagway in 1897-98 is believed to have had control of Dyea as well.[5]

The port at Dyea had shallow water, while neighboring Skagway had deep water. Dyea was abandoned when the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad chose the White Pass Trail, which begins in Skagway, over the Chilkoot Trail

Chilkoot Trail:

The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. Tlingit First Nations used the trail as a vital trade route to trade for resources available in the interior. As pressures from American settlers and the Hudson's Bay Company weakened the traditional Tlingit trading system, the Chilkoot Trail slowly became utilized by explorers and prospectors.\

The Klondike Gold Rush transformed the Chilkoot Trail into a mainstream transportation route to Canada's interior. The gold rush was primarily focused in the region around Dawson City in Yukon and the Yukon River. Of the several overland routes, the Chilkoot Trail was the most direct, least expensive, and, soon enough, most popular. It was eclipsed by the construction of the railway from Skagway, and was soon abandoned.

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  Klondike Goldrush National Historical Park

Date Listed: June 30, 1976

Location: Union of Chilkoot Trail and Dyea Site and Skagway Historic District and White Pass

Town: Skagway

Expanded Description:

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.

A fuller appreciation of the story of the Klondike Gold Rush requires exploration and discovery on both sides of the Canada–United States border. National historic sites in Whitehorse and Dawson City, Yukon, as well as in British Columbia, complete the story. In 1998, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park joined with Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site, Dawson Historical Complex National Historic Site, and "The Thirty Mile" stretch of the Yukon River to create Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park, allowing for an integrated binational experience.

White Pass Trail

The park includes as one of its units the White Pass Trail. White Pass is a mountain pass that leads from Skagway to the headwaters of the Yukon River in British Columbia. The trail was one of the two main routes used by prospectors to get from Skagway over the Boundary Range on their way to the gold fields in the Yukon. The White Pass and Yukon Route railway, completed in 1900, used White Pass to bring prospectors from Skagway to Whitehorse, Yukon.

Dyea Townsite and Chilkoot Trail

The historic townsite of Dyea is also part of the historical park, from which the Chilkoot Trail leaves and runs to Bennett Lake in British Columbia. From there, prospectors generally rafted to Dawson City, Yukon. The trail center in Skagway, operated by both the National Park Service and Parks Canada, has information regarding current conditions along the Chilkoot Trail as it travels through both countries. A permit is required to hike the 33-mile trail.

Seattle unit

An integral part of the park is the Visitor's Center in Seattle, Washington, in the Pioneer Square National Historic District. It functions as an interpretive center and museum, and also has information on how to visit the Skagway units of the park. It opened June 2, 1979,[17] and was originally located in the Union Trust Annex (built 1902),[18] across Main Street from Occidental Park.

The Seattle unit is now located in an 1889 building, the Cadillac Hotel at 319 Second Avenue South. The Cadillac Hotel building was a major point of outfitting and departure during the gold rush stampede. Severely damaged in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, it was rehabilitated 2004–2005 as home to the Seattle unit of the park, and was opened and dedicated on June 26, 2006. The National Park Travelers Club held its 2014 convention at Klondike Gold Rush.

International Park

In 1969, the United States and Canadian governments jointly declared their intention to make Chilkoot Trail a component of a Klondike Gold Rush International Historic Park. The U.S. portion was eventually established in 1976 as part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

The Canadian portion of the trail became Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site, one of several sites in the national park system associated with the Klondike. But it was not until the centennial of the gold rush, in 1998, that the dream of an international park was realized, when Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site were declared to constitute jointly the Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park. Their previous legal names were retained, while the new name reflected co-operative management between the two park services, and the formalization of relations which had in fact been going on for years.

Beyond this, joint resolutions recognize the relevance to gold rush interpretation of the Dawson Historical Complex National Historic Site, in Dawson City, Yukon, which includes significant buildings. Parks Canada identifies Dawson City as a unit of the international park,[24] as well as "The Thirty Mile" section of the Yukon River, a national heritage river from Lake Laberge to the Teslin River. The river has been recognized by both countries as part of their joint interpretative efforts.

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  Skagway Historic District and White Pass

Date Listed: October 15, 1966

Location: Skagway historic downtown and White Pass up to the Canada–US border

Town: Skagway

Description: A contributing property to Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

Expanded Description:

The Skagway Historic District and White Pass is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing a significant portion of the area within the United States associated with the Klondike Gold Rush. It includes the historic portion of Skagway, Alaska, including the entire road grid of the 1897 town, as well as the entire valley on the United States side of White Pass all the way to the Canada–US border. This area includes surviving fragments of three historic routes used during the Gold Rush, as well as the route of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. Almost 100 buildings remain from the Gold Rush period. Portions of the district are preserved as part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

The Skagway portion of the district includes the historic heart of the town, a region 23 block long and varying in width from three to five blocks. Fourteen of these blocks were under National Park Service protection in 1999. Buildings in the district are generally wood frame structures with one or two stories, which have been brightly painted. Commercial buildings often have false fronts, commercial window displays, and recessed entries, and are sited directly against the sidewalk, while residences are set back. The district includes more than 350 buildings in Skagway, and only eight structures outside the city.

The Arctic Brotherhood Hall (1899), its front covered with driftwood, is one of the contributing buildings.

The valley that rises steeply above Skagway was one of the main routes to the gold fields of the Yukon River. (The other, the Chilkoot Trail, is located west of Skagway, and is part of the National Historic Landmark Chilkoot Trail and Dyea Site historic district.) Two overland routes, the 1897 trail and the Brackett Wagon Road, worked their way up White Pass, as did a water-based route along the Skagway River, and the White Pass and Yukon Railroad, completed in 1900. Part of the valley now also carries the Klondike Highway. There are numerous areas along these historic routes (some of which have not been identified with precision, and may have followed variable routes during the rush) where camp sites and other remnants of the rush are to be found.

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This page was last updated on November 14, 2017.