Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
White Pass & Yukon Route Railway Administration Building
Location	Alaska and Washington, USA
Nearest city	Skagway, Alaska and Seattle, Washington
Area	12,996 acres (5,259 ha)
Established	June 30, 1976 (1976-June-30)
Visitors	860,048 (in 2011)
Governing body	National Park Service
www.nps.gov/klgo/

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, broadly speaking, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.

A fuller appreciation of the story of the Klondike Gold Rush requires exploration and discovery on both sides of the Canada–United States border. National historic sites in Whitehorse and Dawson City, Yukon, as well as in British Columbia, complete the story. In 1998, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park joined with its partners at Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site, Dawson Historical Complex National Historic Site, and other Parks Canada sites to create an integrated experience in the form of the Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park by coordinating aspects of their national activities.

Historic Skagway

Main article: Klondike Gold Rush

NPS and other buildings in the Skagway Historic District

The Skagway unit includes much of the historic downtown such as buildings owned and restored by NPS and others, some leased even today for ordinary commercial purposes to recreate the city's bustling activity. The visitor center in Skagway is located in railroad depot building at Second and Broadway and is a good place to begin tours either led by a ranger or self-guided. Junior rangers can plan their activities further and earn their badges further up Broadway at the Pantheon Saloon.

• White Pass & Yukon Route Railway Broadway Depot. Second & Broadway. Now serving as the park's Visitors Center and Headquarters, the depot was the first building the railway built for this purpose, completed in December 1898. The structure served this purpose at least until the 1950's. However, together with the adjoining administration building and the railway itself, these were taken over by the U.S. Army Railway Operating Battalion from 1942 to 1946 to supply construction of the Alaska Highway, the first land route to Alaska, then under construction in adjoining British Columbia and Yukon Territory as part of the war effort. It was the only commercial railway in the United States taken over for this purpose. The building was transferred to NPS in 1976 with restoration completed in 1984, returning its appearance to the 1908-1915 time period.

• White Pass & Yukon Route Railway Administration Building. Second east of Broadway. The bottom floor houses the park museum while additional park offices are located upstairs. Located next to the depot, the Daily Alaskan noted during the year of its completion in its May 3, 1900 edition that it the railway's headquarters was "by far the finest wooden structure in the city." As with the depot, it was vacated in 1969, transferred to NPS in 1976, with restoration completed in 1984.

• Martin Itjen's House. Broadway between First and Second. The building serves as the NPS and Parks Canada Trail Center, and is one of the first structures visitors to the park arriving by ship see. Originally it stood on piers by the wharf, completed in 1902, and is reminiscent of homes built for railway employees. In 1922, it was sold to Martin Itjen who had learned to profit from the summer tourist trade by greeting passers-by and selling tours of the town's attractions. Relocation of railway tracks in 1946 isolated the house, which after two intermediate moves ended up on Sixth. NPS acquired the structure in 1978, moving it to its current position 300 feet (92 m) west of its original location. Restoration was completed in 1991 to return the home to the 1921-1941 period.

• Jeff. Smith's Parlor. Second west of Broadway. The building was most famously used as a base of operations by con man and outlaw Jefferson "Soapy" Smith who ended up in Alaska by way of Denver. He and his gang defrauded and tricked miners for only three months before Smith was shot to death in spectacular fashion on the Skagway wharf. Martin Itjen bought the saloon in 1922, and outfitted it as a museum with animatronic figures of Soapy Smith and his associates. Even after selling it in 1950, the museum remained in operation until 1986. Donated to NPS in 2007, the building was refurbished to its old glory as it would have been seen by visitors back in 1967, and reopened in April 2016.

• Verbauwhede's Cigar Store, Confectionery, and Cribs. Broadway between Second and Third. Frederick Verbauwhede originally opened a store selling cigars and confections here in 1898, and in 1902 moved one-story "cribs" behind the store from their previous location between Fourth and Fifth where they housed prostitutes. A gunsmith, jeweler, gas station and travel agency occupied the premises at one time or another through 1977 when NPS purchased the buildings. Restored in 1986, the cigar store is leased to a private business while the cribs are used by the park's law enforcement operations.

• Boas Tailor & Furrier Shop. Broadway between Second and Third. As the name implies, it was formerly, though briefly, a furrier, topped by a traditional high wooden false front as seen in other western towns in the United States and Canada. After a series of other business, it was sold to NPS in 1978 with period restoration completed in 1986. It is now leased to private business to encourage a feeling of Skagway as a center of bustling business activity.

• Pacific Clipper Line Office. Broadway near Third. First serving the considerable steamship trade that brought passengers to Skagway that lack other means of access, the building later became a liquor store before Skagway was hit by municipal prohibition in 1916 and other uses were found for it. NPS acquired the building in 1976, and after restoration began leasing it to private business in 1990.

• Mascot Saloon.

• Lynch and Kennedy Dry Goods Store.

• Trail Inn & Pack Train Saloon.

• Pantheon Saloon.

• Kirmse Jewelry Store.

The park also preserves portions of the White Pass Trail and the Chilkoot Trail, which leaves from the historic townsite of Dyea, Alaska and runs to Bennett Lake, from which prospectors could raft to Dawson City, Yukon.

The historic townsite of Dyea is also part of the historical park. The trail center in Skagway is operated by both the National Park Service and Parks Canada and has information regarding current traveling conditions along the Chilkoot Trail. A permit is required to hike the 33-mile historic trail.

Seattle unit

Buildings of Seattle unit

The park's Seattle Visitor's Center at the Cadillac Hotel

Prior location of the Visitor's Center in the Union Trust Annex (at right)

An integral part of the park is the Visitor's Center in Seattle, Washington, in the Pioneer Square National Historic District. It functions as an interpretive center and museum, and also has information on how to visit the Skagway unit of the park. It opened June 2, 1979, and was located in the Union Trust Annex (built 1902), across Main Street from Occidental Park.

The Seattle unit is now located in an 1889 building, the Cadillac Hotel at 319 Second Avenue South. The Cadillac Hotel building was a major point of outfitting and departure during the gold rush stampede. Severely damaged in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, it was rehabilitated 2004–2005 as home to the Seattle Unit of the park, and was opened and dedicated 26 June 2006. The National Park Travelers Club held its 2014 convention at Klondike Gold Rush.

=International Cooperation

In 1969, the US and Canadian governments jointly declared their intention to make Chilkoot Trail a component of a Klondike Gold Rush International Historic Park. The US portion was eventually established in 1976 as part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

The Canadian portion of the trail became Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site, one of several sites in the national park system associated with the Klondike. But it wasn't until the centennial of the gold rush, in 1998, that the dream of an international park was realized, when Klondike Gold Rush NHP and Chilkoot Trail NHS joined to form Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park. Their previous legal names were retained, while the new name reflected co-operative management between the two park services, and the formalization of relations which had in fact been going on for years.

Beyond this, the International Historical Park includes Dawson Historical Complex National Historic Site, in Dawson City, Yukon, which includes some 1significant buildings. In addition, "The Thirty Mile" section of the Yukon River, a national heritage river from Lake Laberge to the Teslin River, is a unit of the international park.

External links

• Klondike Gold Rush NHP: Skagway Unit
• Klondike Gold Rush NHP: Seattle Unit
• Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park at the National Park Service Alaska Regional Office
• Gold Fever! Seattle Outfits the Klondike Gold Rush, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• Cadillac Hotel
• Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park
• Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site, B.C.
• S.S. Klondike National Historic Site, Yukon
• S.S. Keno National Historic Site, Yukon
• Dawson Historical Complex NHS, Yukon
• Dredge No. 4 NHS, Yukon
• Thirty Mile National Heritage River (a section of the Yukon River)