The Saber and Scroll
Looking south , down Broadway , from 5
th Avenue towards the modern cruise ship terminal . When first constructed the WP & YR track ran straight down the center of Broadway . By February 1899 the like reached White Pass summit . By July 1900 a full 110 miles of track had been laid from Skagway Alaska to Carcross in the Yukon Territory . Photo reprinted with the permission of the Municipality of Skagway Visitor Department
www . skagway . com .
As a major contributor to the economic well-being of Skagway as a freight hauler to the Canadian Interior , the booklet devotes a short article to the excursions of the White Pass & Yukon Railroad . The railroad was a driving force in Skagway ’ s appeal as additional excursions were developed into the 1920s and 1930s aside from a roundtrip ride to the White Pass Summit . The very descriptive article begins with a very brief history of the railroad and the Klondike Gold Rush , stating that
We will board the train at Broadway station , and after passing through the principal part of the town we cross Skagway river , noisy and icy cold , hurrying on its way to the sea . Soon we pass over the old White Pass trail … You imagine it peopled with all those thousands who toiled and travelled over its rugged paths in 1897 and 1898 , the steady streams of gold seekers , pack laden , eager hearted , and buoyed up with the prospects that lured them onward … Just below you lays the old historic White Pass City where 10,000 eager gold seekers camped for brief periods before making the final effort up the canyon ; and we see Dead Horse Gulch … where hundreds of horses , overtired and tooheavily ladened , unable to proceed farther , tottered and fell
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