The Skagway Centennial Statue
Skagway, Alaska
Skagway celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the Klondike Stampede gold rush in 1998. When this panorama was made, in 1999, they were just finishing a small plaza commemorating the rush, centered on a statue of an Indian guide leading a stampeder over the mountains. The plaza stands between the docks and the railroad museum, on the route from the cruise ships to the town.
Skagway is one of four sites that together form Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park — another is far to the south, in Seattle, and two more are north, in Canada, at Whitehorse and Dawson. Together they help us track and understand what has been called the nineteenth century's last great adventure. In 1898 Skagway was a wild and lawless town, presided over by a master con man and criminal organizer, Soapy Smith. Soapy's parlor is just down the street from the depot.