By the spring of 1898, Skagway had streets of rough-board buildings and a harbour that sometimes handled two or three ships a day. The town even had electric lights. Its highly transient population fluctuated wildly between 6000 and 10,000.
Alfred McMichael described Skagway at the end of March 1898: "There are some sidewalks and cross walks, but the rest is mostly mud. The streets are lined with saloons and restaurants, mostly saloons, on both sides."
Skagway existed to serve the stampeders in whatever way it could. Besides hotels, restaurants, stores, and pack companies, it boasted a large population of moneylenders, gamblers, confidence men, dance hall girls, and prostitutes. For the first half of 1898, there was no effective law and very little order.
Saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses thrived, operating day and night. Their names give a flavour of the times: the Blaze of Glory, the Hungry Pup, the Mangy Dog, the Bonanza, the Klondike, the Nugget, the Red Onion, the Home of Hooch, the Palace of Delight, and the incongruously-named Board of Trade.
Gradually through 1898, Skagway became more respectable. Crime lord Soapy Smith was killed and his gang broken up. Men who had come north on their own sent for their families, changing the social balance of the town. And railway construction brought stable, long-term investment. By 1899, Skagway's reputation as a wide-open, lawless boomtown was already obsolete.
