Author: Skagway Sleuth

Currently retired living in another Gold Rush town, this one in California - Columbia! I continue to answer emails and do research as I can, but I am not in a position to do any more research in Skagway. I will gladly post photos and stories of goldrushers though!
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Ellen Orr Batson


Born on this day, September 22 1879 in North Carolina, Ellen Orr was married to William Burt Batson the town butcher in Skagway. They were here at least from 1910 to 1915 but probably longer. William managed the Frye Bruhn Meat Company.
Ellen Orr Batson died in 1967 in Randall Washington and is buried in the Silver Creek Cemetery there.

There were actually two buildings associated with the Meat Market, one is on 5th, seen above, and this summer was the “Bombay Curry” Restaurant. This was the actual store and is being considered for historic building status, the other is the building on 5th and State. This building, the Frye-Bruhn’s cold storage building, was once used to refrigerate the company’s meat products. It has been recognized as historically significant by the National Park Service, which took ownership of the building in 2004. A contributing element of the Skagway and White Pass National Historic Landmark, this building is also in the process of being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places by the Park Service.

Late breaking news about the restoration of the cold storage building:
a revolver was found in the walls of the building last week, no news on its age, but a photo of it is flying around Skagway. Earlier in the summer one of the archaeologists was impaled in the eye by a flying nail but she is now recovering. Who knows what other evil spirits the building hides?

Alaska Library Archeaology; 1915 directory, family website, Silver Creek Cemetery list, Skagway News, Skagway Museum Record.

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Infant Mortality


On September 20, 1900, three babies died, Elias Rudd, Constant Schemich, and one of Kitty Smith’s babies. The only cause of death listed on the Skagway Death Records was for Constant and that was for brain fever. They were buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery. The influenza which spread over the world in 1918 reached Alaska in force in 1919 and 1920.
Then in 1935 on September 20 Leonard A. Sweeney, another newborn, died and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery. In those days folks had a curious penchant for photographing dead people in their coffins.

Skagway Death Record

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Robert Lee Guthrie


Born in 1862 in Texas, Mr. Guthrie came to Skagway in the gold rush. By the spring of 1898, he owned the Board of Trade Saloon.
“A shrewd saloon man could make a mint selling liquor, running gambling tables and offering female entertainment upstairs or in the alley behind his place, all of which Mr. Guthrie did. He quickly reinvested his money in Skagway’s real estate, buying up property as soon as it hit the market. By 1900, Guthrie was building the most expensive home in Alaska, now known as the White House on Eighth Avenue, costing $10,000 to build.. He was on the first three city councils of Skagway”

Guthrie married Abbie Atkins in 1901 in Salado, Texas, the daughter of a Baptist minister and his childhood sweetheart. They returned to Skagway but left in 1908. Lee Guthrie died on this day, September 20, 1934 in Stockton, California.

Skagway News Historical Features;

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Dr. Charles W. Cornelius


Born October 11, 1956 in Portland Oregon and died November 1, 1923, Dr. Charles Cornelius is often pictured as the doctor who did the autopsy on Soapy and Frank Reid. He was elected coroner of Multnomah County in Oregon in 1894. He came to Skagway in 1898 just in time for the spinal meningitis epidemic and the Soapy shootout.
He returned to Portland, retired and then built the Cornelius Hotel there.

He is seen at the right in the photo above as Dr. Whiting pokes around.

Portland, Oregon – Its history and builders in connection with the antecedent explorations, discoveries and movements of the Pioneers that selected the site for the Great City of the Pacific, by Joseph Gaston, 1911 p. 439

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Sheep Camp

Mr B.L. Tingley took this photo of the muddy road in front of the Grand Pacific Hotel in Sheep Camp. Mr. J.P. Rupp owned this fine establishment. No news on what became of him after the gold rush.

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Emory Valentine


Mr. Valentine was born in 1858 in Dowagiac, Michigan. He first opened a jewelery store in 1895 in Juneau. He would have built a jewelry store in Skagway, but he faced competition from Herman Kirmse, a well-known jeweler. In 1897 he built and was co-owner of the Sylvestor-Valentine wharf where Soapy and Frank Reid were shot. He also owned the Princess Saloon in Skagway in 1898. He died on this day, September 14, 1930 at the age of 72 in Juneau and is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery.

Yukon genealogy; Spude book; Evergreen records; Juneau Parks and Recreation website.
Who’s Who in Alaska Politics: A Biographical Dictionary of Alaskan Political Personalities, 1884-1974; Wikipedia.

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John Foley


John Foley was a well known card shark (three-card-monte) during those tumultuous days in 1898.

In the spring of 1898 the Spanish conflict aroused the patriotism in “Colonel” Soapy Smith to the point that he decided to recruit a company of soldiers in Skagway such as Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Such became legal under authorization of the Volunteer Bill of April 23, 1898. The bill as presented by President William McKinley provided for the First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment – The Rough Riders – as a result of the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898 with the loss of 260 of her crew.

President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers from the seven Western states and territories, a figure that was soon raised to 267,000. Three regiments were to be raised in the West, the first in the four territories, which included Alaska, the second in Wyoming and the third in the Dakotas.
Soapy organzied Company A, 1st Regiment of National Guard of Alaska and elected himself as Captain and John Foley as 1st Lieutenant.

The next time he shows up in history is that on this day, September 13, 1913 he got married in Alaska.

Corvallis Community online pages; Soapy letter to Pres McKinley in Clifford; news accts of deaths in NPS library

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Matthew M. Sundeen


The Sundeen family came to Skagway in 1898. Matthew was a master mariner and had a steamship business as well as being a quartz miner. His wife Ida ran the Pearson and Sundeen laundry. Matthew was born in 1866 in Sweden and married Ida Louella Crosier in Oregon in 1892. They had three daughters, Carrie, Lucille Loraine and Etta who was born here in Skagway in 1903. Mrs. Sundeen died in 1914 at the age of 38 in Portland but Matthew stayed in Skagway for many years and died on this day, September 9, 1941 and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery.

Just prior to his death in 1941, Sundeen wrote an article that appeared in The Fairbanks Daily News. Back in 1898, Sundeen said he was in the hardware store opposite the Juneau Wharf and had been first on the scene when he looked out to see Smith and his gang confront Tanner and the boys. He remembers Reid’s revolver failing to fire three times, as Smith fired four shots into the surveyor. Then he watched Jesse Murphy struggle with Smith, trying to wrestle the Winchester away from him before he killed anyone else. In the process, Smith shot and killed himself. Well, enough people had remembered seeing Reid kill Soapy through the years to put into question one old miner’s 43-year-old memory.

Sundeen claimed no one else but him, Smith, Reid, Tanner, Murphy and Landers were on the wharf approach when the killing occurred. Further he claimed that Tanner, Murphy and Landers all agreed to lie to the officials to let Reid think he’d died a hero. Who knows, the story has a certain amount of credibility. I have tried to find record of what became of Jesse Murphy, but with such a common name, he disappeared after 1898. Certainly White Pass who employed Jesse Murphy had much to gain from the end of all the lawlessness in Skagway.

Here is picture of the schoolkids in 1906 in front of the school, no doubt Carrie, Lucile and maybe even Etta are here.

censuses; familysearch; Fairbanks Daily News.

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Harriet arrives in Skagway


Although we have covered Harriet Pullen before, it was on this day, September 8, 1897 that she arrived in Skagway full of hope for a new life. She left behind a bankrupt farm and four children to join her husband here to scratch out a living. Starting a restaurant in a tent and cooking meals, her husband ran a string of horses across White Pass. After earning enough money, she bought a log cabin and then sent for her boys to help her.
Soon after, she and her husband split and sold the packing business. She told people that she was a widow. She purchased a large frame house from Captain Moore and named it the Pullen House. All that is left today is the chimney, which is now more clearly seen since the city has cut down all the trees in the area in the past month. Nasty trees, who needs them?

from Alaska: Saga of a Born Land by Borneman