Dyea, Skagway Mining District, Skagway, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Dyea	- not defined -
Skagway Mining District	Mining District
Skagway	City Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

The Chilkoot Trail started at Dyea, Alaska about 2.6 miles north of Skagway. Dyea is at the mouth of the Taiya River and the river valley runs almost straight north to Chilkoot Pass at the border of British Columbia. It was shorter than the White Pass Trail that followed the Skagway River and was the choice of most of the stampeders but it required climbing the dreaded “scales” up to the pass.

Dyea was the essence of a “boom town”. In the mid 1880’s a trading post had been established at the at the site and in 1896 when the prospectors started to trickle up the Chilkoot Trail a post office was opened. By 1898 the population of the town reached about 4,000. It is estimated that about 22,000 prospectors passed through Dyea on the way to the gold fields. When the railroad was completed in 1899 the Chilkoot Trail became obsolete and the population rapidly declined. By 1906 only one man remained and today you would have to look hard to find any sign of the buildings in the grass.

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