Month: March 2010

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Charles Pelot Summerall

Summerall was a Lieutenant with the 106th Coast Artillery Company that arrived here in Skagway in 1902. He arrived with 67 army soldiers.
By the time he arrived here, he had quite a busy life already.
Born on this day, March 4, 1867 in Blount’s Ferry Florida, he went to West Point where he graduated in 1892. He served in the Spanish American War, in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion and in France during WW1 where he was highly decorated.
Summerall retired a 4 star general in 1929.
In 1931 he became the President of the Citadel, a post he held for the next 22 years.
He died on May 14, 1955 in Washington D.C. and is buried in Arlington.
The picture above is not of Summerall, but rather of Arthur Curtiss, one of the soldiers here in his very smart Artillery uniform. Snap-To!

army military website; Skagway Museum Record; AK Hist library

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Deadly Hotel Fire in Dyea


On this day in 1898 there was a fire in Dyea. The Every One’s Home Hotel and the adjoining saloon and dance hall there burned at night. Although 20 people were sleeping there, 4 people did not make it out as reported by the New York Times on March 10, 1898. The dead were identified as Bert Meeker of Portland, a man named Russell and two unidentified men. It was also reported that a woman’s body was recovered, but Mrs. Bert Meeker escaped as reported by the Dyea Press on March 12, 1898 and was staying at Murray’s.

New York Times March 10, 1898; Dyea Press March 12, 1898.

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Froze to death


On about this day in 1898 two unknown men were found by the NWMP at Fraser Lake near Tagish. They had frozen to death. Pictured above are the Northwest Mounted Police Yukon Expeditionary Force in their snappy winter dress uniforms.

Minter p. 144

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George T. Ulmer


George established the first printing plant in Skagway in 1898. He then moved to Dyea and published the “Dyea Trail” on January 12, 1898 for a few months. It was a weekly paper until his death on this day, March 1, 1899 in Juneau. He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery there. Ho-hum.

Evergreen Records; obituary of brother Charles in Olympic, WA.