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Album: Seattle, Washington 2007
Image: 477 / 545
Date: 2007-09-03 11:10:26
Tags: Seattle

Trailside Entrepreneurs

Ingenuity and enterprise accompanied the stampeders. More money was made by those who set up hotels, restaurants, and other businesses than by most of the Klondike prospectors. Several small towns sprang up along the Chilkoot Trail, providing supplies and services to stampeders.

Tranporting the mountain of goods required for each stampeder was a business in itself. Local Tlingits hired out as packers carrying goods for a set amount per pound. Loads were weighed at the scales to calculate payment to the packers. Several entrepreneurs built tramways for hauling gear. A crude surface tramway pulled loads up the final slope to the summit.

Several other aerial tramways were engineering marvels for their day. The most elaborate, completed in May 1898, was a tramway built by the Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company that carried goods nine miles over the pass on cables hung on wooden tripods. Most stampeders, however, could not affort these luxuries. They slowly and methodically shouldered the heavy loads themselves.