Stories and Folklore from Skagway, Alaska
On this day, August 8, 1897, Mr Fowler was found on the Chilkoot trail with a 100 pound pack on his back, drowned. I shudder to think how this happened…
His body may have been shipped out – another good reason to belong to a fraternal organization that promised to bring a brother home if he died in some god-forsaken place.
Bond p. 26; Skagway death record; Wells
On this day, August 2, 1903 two men went out fishing and never returned. They both drowned when they ran into trouble out in Lynn Canal. Patrick Comer was buried in the Skagway Gold Rush Cemetery but Mr. Stanley or Standley was shipped down to Seattle to be buried.
Stanley was the first Mayor of Skagway and joined the Arctic Brotherhood in 1899, he was 50 years old when he died. Comer was a fisherman and was 45 years old when he died.
Also died on this day was Herman Meyer, famous in this town for his building “Meyer’s Meat Market” which is now under reconstruction by the National Park Service on the corner of 5th and State Streets.
Meyer was a butcher, owned the Arctic Meat Company, and also managed the Arctic Telephone Company. He moved to Valdez in 1903 and died in Alaska on August 2, 1923.
Skagway death records; 1900 census; 1902 directory.