Dyea Townsite

Boomtown Dyea

Dyea's real boom began in the fall of 1897. When word of the wealth of the Klondike strike splashed onto the world's newspapers in mid‑July 1897, traffic up the Inside Passage grew to a frenzied pace. For months, jammed boatloads of prospectors disembarked in Dyea and streamed north over the Chilkoot Pass. Few people remained in the area very long. As late as September 1897, Dyea was still nothing more than the Healy & Wilson trading post, a few saloons, the Tlingit encampment, and a motley assemblage of tents. In October, speculators mapped out a townsite, but Dyea's biggest growth did not begin until the Yukon River system started to freeze up and the winter storms slowed traffic on the Chilkoot Trail. Without the ability to dash up the trails, people began spending more time in Dyea and it became more town-like.

A Busy Business District
During the winter of 1897-1898, Dyea was large in size and multifaceted in function. The downtown area was about five blocks wide and eight blocks long. At the height of its prosperity, the town boasted over 150 businesses, with the large majority of them being restaurants, hotels, supply houses, and saloons.

Manufacturing was limited to two breweries. Attorneys, bankers, freighting companies, photographers, steamship and real estate agents were also plentiful. To care for your health, there were drug stores, doctors, a dentist, two hospitals, and three undertakers. Although the town doesn’t appear to have had any type of formal government, a Chamber of Commerce developed as did a volunteer fire department (but without a building) and a school that ran from May 1898 – June 1900.

To connect with the outside world, the town had two newspapers (the Dyea Trail and the Dyea Press) and two telephone companies, one that ran its line up the Chilkoot Trail to Bennett and the other that ran its line to Skagway. There were also two wharfs, many warehouses and freight sorting areas, and a sawmill. The town also had one church, of the Methodist-Episcopalian denomination.

Dyea's Downfall

Dyea competed on fairly even terms with Skagway through the winter of 1897‑1898, but in the spring, Dyea began to lose its competitive edge. On April 3, 1898, there was a massive snow slide, known as the "Palm Sunday Avalanche" on the Chilkoot Trail. This disaster happened north of Sheep Camp and killed over 70 people. This brought worldwide negative publicity and some travelers steered away from Dyea. The opening of the Yukon River brought a mass exodus from the town as the stampeders left for Dawson.

The construction of the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad, which began in Skagway in May 1898, funneled most new stampeders to Skagway. Freight destined for the tramways of the Chilkoot Railroad & Transport Company continued to pour through Dyea, but few passengers filed into town. Finally, the replacement of the Klondike Gold Rush with the Spanish-American war in the nation’s headlines, spelled Dyea’s doom.

Beginning with the fall of 1898, Dyea began to fade away. In late 1898, the onslaught of winter snows slowed and then halted tramway operations. By the spring of 1899, portions of the Long Wharf were no longer usable. In late July 1899 a forest fire burned the U.S. Army Camp at the Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company. The troops permanently moved to Skagway. By the summer of 1899, the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad purchased the aerial tramways over the Chilkoot Trail. Not wanting the competition for their railroad, tramway operations came to a halt. Most of the tramway apparatus was removed in early 1900 and the Chilkoot Trail ceased being a transportation corridor after hundreds of years. Without a trail leading north Dyea’s reason for existence vanished.

After 1900, the population of Dyea continued to slump. Although about 250 people lived there in March 1900, an informal tally in the spring of 1901 showed only 71 with any interest in the town. Those who remained hoped to benefit from various railroad or townsite schemes that were being promoted at the time, but when the schemes failed to bear fruit the inhabitants drifted away. The post office closed in June 1902, and by 1903 less than a half‑dozen people occupied the remains of the old townsite.