Skagway Historic District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Region 11 Park Cultural Landscapes Program. 2001. Skagway Historic District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 100050. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. NPS Alaska Regional Office, Anchorage, Alaska / CRIS-CL Database
Inventory Unit Description: Skagway Historic District is a historic cultural landscape located at the northern end of the southeastern Alaskan panhandle. Rugged coastal mountains on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west border Southeast Alaska, which thousands of islands and inlets surround. The town lies within a deep, glacially carved valley at the northern terminus of the Lynn Canal’s east arm, where the Skagway River enters the bay, about 100 air miles north of Juneau and 117 road miles south of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. As a phenomenon born of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, the townsite rapidly emerged from a 160-acre homestead (with a wharf) that Captain William Moore and his son, J. Bernard (Ben) Moore, established in 1887. Financial backing from investors in June 1896 supported surveying (US Survey No. 13) and re-filing the homestead as a “Trading and Manufacturing Site.” After the discovery of gold on the Klondike in August 1896, squatters overran the Moore property and proceeded to convert their temporary tents into permanent commercial structures and private dwellings. Initially laid out by the Miner’s Council in August 1897, by January 1898, the Skagway Town Council ordered an official survey for a gridded townsite; in 1900, Skagway was the first Alaskan town to incorporate. In 1962, the Skagway and White Pass District became a National Historic Landmark. In 1976, Congress authorized the creation of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, which includes four units: the Seattle interpretive unit, the Skagway Historic District unit, the White Pass unit, and the Chilkoot unit. Encompassing the 1897 townsite that emerged during the Klondike Gold Rush, the Skagway Historic District’s period of significance is 1897-1910. For the purposes of the Cultural Landscape Inventory, the Moore Homestead, the Skagway Historic District, and the White Pass Historic Transportation System are part of the White Pass Corridor. Although the Moore Homestead resides within the Historic District, the site is considered a separate component landscape
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Region 11 Park Cultural Landscapes Program
- Date of Issue
- 2001-09-10
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- AKR , KLGO
- Keywords
- Captain William Moore, concession, general store, historic district guidelines, historic structure, homestead, J Bernard Moore, Klondike Gold Rush, Moore Homestead, National Historic Landmark, rehabilitation, residential, single family house, town survey, townsite, trading and manufacturing, visitor center, wharf, White Pass