The Saber and Scroll
of the 20 th century , Skagway ’ s population was 600 . While it was no longer the Gold Rush boom town , the economy stabilized , and it emerged as a main tourist attraction in Southeast Alaska . 4
The leisure travel industry is almost a century and a half old . 5 Taken from the 18th century concept of the Grand European Tour of the very wealthy and the aristocracy , which has its antecedents in the pilgrimages and exploration of the Medieval and Renaissance periods , leisure travel became a marketable industry in the United States after the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century . As more people immigrated or moved into the cities , the populations swelled into factories and industry . The new work schedule , consisting of five days a week and two days for leisure time , allowed for the rising middle class to take time off for travel . Railroads hauled freight and paying passengers into parts of continents still little settled or rarely ( if ever ) seen by outsiders . Eventually , steamship travel and trans-oceanic luxury liner crossed the open waters , carrying passengers and freight to destinations across the globe . By the middle of the 19th century , established travel tours were available . “ Once regular steamship service between several West Coast ports and southeastern Alaska had been established in 1884 , a smaller but steadily increasing number of well-to-do Americans began touring the Inside Passage ” and tour ships originated from the ports of Seattle , Tacoma , San , Francisco , and Portland . 6
While it is difficult to get an accurate year to year count of visitors to
Skagway ( or Southeast Alaska in general ), newspapers disclosed numbers for the sake of self-promotion as well as civic pride . For example , on July 18 , 1916 , the Jefferson of the Pacific Alaska Steamship Company “ is scheduled to make this port some time Wednesday morning . Sixty-five round trip excursion tickets to the Summit ( White Pass Summit ) have been sold by the purser so a large number of tourists are aboard that boat .” 7 Skagway , like many locations in Southeast Alaska , began to prepare for the tourist season by mid- March as announcements appeared concerning visitor traffic for the upcoming summer . Skagway ’ s only daily newspaper after 1909 until it ceased publication in the 1920s , The Daily Alaskan , published passenger counts from ships expected in port and letters from the steamship company executives on the expectations of the coming season . One of the first mentions of tourism travel was from the Alaska Traveler ’ s Guide , a short-lived daily paper published from July 12 , 1900 – May 16 , 1902 , that provided information on Skagway businesses — hotels , restaurants , shops , and mail delivery and city services , and the White Pass & Yukon Railroad schedules . “ The Sound ( referencing Seattle perhaps ) papers say there will be a greatly increased tourist travel this summer . The steamship companies are getting ready for it .” 8 The Interloper , Skagway ’ s third newspaper , has few extant copies between May 5 , 1908 and April 10 , 1909 . Its pages covered baseball games and tournaments and many of the political issues of the day . City Council meetings were also discussed
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