| What makes it historical? |
From the moment the United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, American prospectors began trickling into the territory looking for telltale signs of riches. Homesteader William Moore saw this as an omen of things to come and started developing both his town of Mooresville and a new trail into the mountains called the White Pass Trail!
In August of 1896, his planning paid off with the first gold discovery on the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory. 10,000 gold rushers stampeded through Mooresville (renamed Skagway) and neighboring Dyea to stock up on a year’s worth of supplies, since they couldn’t enter Canada without it, and head 35 miles up either the White Pass or Chilkoot Trail, carve a canoe, and float another 560 miles down the Yukon River to Dawson City! A mere three years passed, and most of the gold rushers gave up and went home. The real winners of this gold rush were the shopkeepers and food sellers who were able to mine the miners! |
