Today the Moore House and the original cabin are museum buildings that have been preserved and restored by the National Park Service. Post Office recognized the new spelling of "Skagway" as the official town name.Īs the Moores' wealth and family size grew with the booming town of Skagway they built a larger home to accommodate their family needs. By August of 1897 newcomers to Skagway organized a local government and named the town Skaguay from the Tlingit word Shghagwiei, rather than Mooresville. Their 160 acre homestead was shrunk down to 43 acres. The start of the gold rush lead the Moore Homestead to be overrun with claim jumpers. Overnight this muddy little tent city turned into the largest city in Alaska. On Jthe first steamship landed in Skagway Bay bringing with it eager gold seekers. With help from English civil engineer Ernest Edward Billinghurst, the Moores were able to start work on the White Pass Trail and sawmill. Gold strikes in the interior caused growing interest in the trail and he marketed Skagway as the "gateway" for prospectors to make their way over the mountains and on to the gold fields. The mountain trail they established would become the White Pass named after Sir Thomas White, the Canadian Minister of Interior. When the gold was discovered near the Klondike in August of 1896 it took several months before news of the north got out to the rest of the world.Ĭaptain William Moore and native guide Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) traveled through the Coastal Mountains seeking an alternative route to the Chilkoot Trail. No one knew if and when a big gold strike would happen, but the Moores would be ready in Mooresville. For the next 8 summers they lived in Skagway and built a small cabin, sawmill, and wharf in anticipation of the next big gold rush. The Moores were the first settlers that intended to make Skagway their year round home. Although the Tlingit people had lived in Southeast Alaska for thousands of years, they lived in Skagway only seasonally. Ten years before the Klondike Gold Rush the Moore family claimed a 160 acre homestead in the valley and called it Mooresville. The Moores and MooresvilleĬaptain William Moore and his sons Billy and Ben were the first Euro American settlers to make Skagway Bay their home. National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 55742a. Martha Ferguson McKeown, The Trail Lead North: Mont Hawthorne’s Story, 1948.ĪB Mountain towering over Skagway Bay looking north in 1897 “There ain’t no choice, one's hell and the other damnation.” The trail became clogged with mud during the wet fall months of 1897, making it impassable at some spots. The White Pass Trail lacked the steep slopes of the Chilkoot, but it was 10 miles longer and had its own obstacles. Both trails are ice free and low in elevation making them the most practical way to cross over the Coastal Mountains into the interior of Canada. The two trails end at the shores of Lake Bennett in the Yukon Territory at the headwaters of the Yukon River. They could choose the 45 mile White Pass Trail out of Skagway or the 33 mile Chilkoot Trail out of Dyea. When the first gold prospectors arrived at the end of the Lynn Canal in 1897 they had to make a decision. Skagway and Dyea are two important entry points into the interior of Canada because of their location at the end of the Inside Passage. Tappan Adney, Journalist, writing about 1897 in The Klondike Stampede, 1900. “Whichever trail you took you wish you had taken the other.”
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