Moore Homestead: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
NPS Alaska Regional Office. 2001. Moore Homestead: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 100051. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Alaska Regional Office/CLI Database
Moore's Homestead is a historic cultural landscape in the Skagway Historical District in Southeastern Alaska. The town occupies a deep, glacially carved valley at the mouth of the Skagway River, about 100 air miles north of Juneau and 117 road miles south of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. Skagway, at the head of one of just three glacier-free corridors linking marine traffice with the Yukon interior, provides the shortest and least difficult route over White Pass. In 1887, the previously unexplored White Pass captured the imagination of Captain William Moore, who envisioned the mouth of the Skagway River as the major staging site for future mineral explorations. His entrepreneurial strategy appealed to financial backers, promising control over transportation and access to the interior. Captain Moore and his son, Ben, selected an area for a homestead and built a log cabin. When the family needed more comfortable accommodations, Ben began construction on a 1.5-story frame house next to the cabin. Expansions at and around the property included a wharf, pack trail, sawmill, and a business office. With the discovery of gold in 1896, the site and its businesses strategically positioned the Moores to control traffic into and out of Skagway. By 1898, a town survey imposed a gridded pattern over much of the Moore property. Several years later, after a court case and survey amendment, the Moores reclaimed portions of their site and the homestead transformed from a commercially oriented pioneer settlement to an enclosed small-scale domestic landscape. The Moores left Skagway in 1906, and the properties were rented until the NPS assumed ownership in 1977. Until the NPS rehabilitated the cabin in 1985-86, its interior had remained as it was in 1896. Today, the NPS maintains the integrity of the interior and uses the exterior of the building for interpretive purposes. Rehabilitation of the Moore House was completed in 1997, and it now is open to visitors as an interpretive site.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- NPS Alaska Regional Office
- Date of Issue
- 2001-09
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- AKR , KLGO
- Keywords
- Ben Moore, cabin, Chilkat, Chilkoot, exploration-settlement, Gold Rush, Lynn Canal, railway, settlement, Skagway, Skagway Historical District, Tlingit, transportation, wharf, White Pass, William Moore