"Railway Built of Gold"

The White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) was designated an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1994. It is an honor shared with other world civil engineering marvels such as the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and the Panama Canal. The WP&YR is recognized for the many difficult and hazardous obstacles that construction overcame: design challenges, Granite Mountains, steep grades, cliff hanging turns and unimaginable weather conditions. The rush for riches was actually predicted by Skagway founder, Captain William Moore

The headline “Gold! Gold! Gold!’ of the Seattle Post Intelligencer on July 17, 1897 broadcast the news of the discovery of gold in the Canadian Klondike. It reported that “ Sixty Eight Rich Men on the Steamer Portland” arrived in Seattle with “Stacks of Yellow Metal”.

Both the Chilkoot Trail and the White Pass Trail were filled with hazards and harrowing experiences. Three thousand horses died on the White Pass Trail.The WP&YR climbs from sea level in Skagway to almost 3000 ft at the summit in just 20 miles. On May 28, 1898 construction began on the narrow gauge railroad. The workers reached the Summit of White Pass on February 20, 1899. During construction 35,000 men worked and 35 lost their lives. Close Brothers of London, under the leadership of W.B Close spent $10,000,000 on construction of the railroad. The Klondike has gone from the gold mining operations of the first stampeders to carry significant amounts of ore and concentrates to Skagway to be loaded upon ore ships.

One hundred thousand men and women headed north, but only 30,000 or 40,000 actually reached the gold fields of Klondike. Four thousand or so prospectors found the gold but only a few hundred became rich. By October 1897, according to Northwest Mounted Police Report, Skagway “had grown from a concourse of tents to a fair-sized town with well-laid- out streets and numerous frame buildings, stores, saloons, gambling houses, dance houses and a population of about 20,000. After following the ‘Container Route on ship, train and truck in 1955 for survival, the WP&YR has now reinvented itself as a tourist attraction for a tourism market since 1988.