| In 1887 Captain William Moore and his son ventured up the Chilkoot Inlet, and built a small cabin at the mouth of the Skagway River. Previously unexplored and uninhabited, this piece of land, named Skagway "land of the North Wind" by nearby tribes, became the largest city in Alaska within 10 short years. By 1896 the word was out that gold had been discovered in the Yukon. Within two years, tens of thousands of "stampeders" had passed through Skagway using White Pass to reach the gold rich Canadian Yukon. By 1898, Skagway was averaging a steady population of 20,000. Littlemore than a clapboard and tent city, it was a rough and lawless place. The most notorious of Skagway's long list of bandits was Jefferson "Soapy" Smith. Named because he sold soap wrapped in conterfeit $1 bills, which were added to the price. |
