Skagway is the oldest incorporated town in the state of Alaska, although in reality Sitka is much older. Situated at the extreme northern end of the Lynn Canal and the end of inside passage, Skagway could not avoid the onslaught of thousands of gold crazy stampeders which resulted in it's founding. Founded to service and swindle the tens of thousands of gold-crazy stampeders passing through it, the town became notoriously rough, "little better than a hell on earth," a Canadian Mountie said. Day and night, gunfire rang out on Broadway, the main street, and spilled out of one of the many saloons in town. Merchants, prostitutes and thieves hustled stampeders, restrained by nothing more than their talent, imagination, and scruples. At the height of the gold rush, Skagway had over 20,000 residents and 80 saloons. Today it has a little over 800 full time residents. The National Park Service does an excellent job telling the story of the "trail of 98". The Klondike Gold Rush National Park was founded in 1976 to preserve and tell one of the most bizarre chapters in the history of the United States and Canada. Federal funds along with massive capitol from the cruise lines have been instrumental in preserving, restoring, and using many of Skagway's splendid turn of the century buildings.
Skagway is quite suitable and comfortable for 700,000 cruise ship passengers per year that find themselves on Broadway. Preservation is almost always a good thing, but some Alaskan locals wished that the park service would have at least considered the approach of "arrested decay" with many of the town's old buildings, and that more of them had been left in their original locations. The streets were still dirt until the early 1980's when they were paved for dust control. In this process of restoration, the story and the town have become a somewhat sanitized version of their true past. Skagway is now very "pretty", bordering on "precious", town that resembles a Disney movie set. Rest assured, all of the buildings are original to Skagway.