Rustic facade -- choice or necessity?
Your natural colors stand out
In the rainbow of Victorian PAINT
Skagway's colorful, no doubt.
Theatre and market, now tourist shops
Everyone changes with time
Stand on the Boardwalk and dream of the past
Or go in and drop tourist dime....
This area of Broadway is thick with contributing historic properties. This split wood Gross Building is one. Immediately beside it is another: the Northern Lights Restaurant, built in the 1960s, now also a shop. The (currently) blue building across 4th is the old Pantheon Saloon. Across Broadway you'll find the gold & green (with cantilevered 'turret') of the Trail Inn, Pack Train Saloon and the salmon pink of Peterson & Co. Genl. Mercantile -- none of which, being of aesthetic rather than documentative mood at the time, I photographed enough to waymark. =Hint Hint, thou following visitor and fan of historical properties=
Documentation=============
(
visit link)
NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION
NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018
… CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES: I. BUILDINGS: A total of 167 buildings are listed. The numbers on the descriptive list are illustrated on Map B (2 sheets), entitled "Skagway and White Pass Historic District."
333A,3338,334. Gross Building, 1940s. One and two-story frame building with split log siding on two sides, gable roof, pediments, false front, cornice, awning over boardwalk. Originally a grocery, theater and record shop complex.
(
visit link)
National Park Service: KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH SKAGWAY, DISTRICT OF ALASKA —1884-1912: Building the Gateway to the Klondike Historical and Preservation Data
THEATER, SUPERMARKET
1 A, B, C (Historical District Map) 1940s -- no information to add to the above
But how about some narrative?
Following a period of stagnation, the preservation of Skagway took a more serious turn. The residents were no longer satisfied with eulogies for demolished buildings, and during Mayor Cy Coyne's tenure in the 1950s, they began to seek attention for the national landmarks in their community. The city established a historical commission and requested another look by the National Park Service. Local groups and the mayor's historical commission, aided by state groups, succeeded in placing Skagway on the National Register of Historic Places (an official list of cultural resources in the United States that are worthy of preservation) on June 13, 1962, as the "Skagway and White Pass National Historic Landmark." This status enabled local property owners to obtain federal and state historic preservation loans and grants. Buildings along Broadway were repainted. Shops were reopened.
For more reading on the Historical district, click through to the two links listed (especially the latter), or see my other local waymarks in this category. [I figure you're visiting all these at once, and there's only so much repetition museum eyes can stand!]
Links to the current businesses:
Echoes of Alaska (
visit link)
Alaska Christmas Store (
visit link)