Martin Itjen (January 24, 1870 - December 3, 1942) is most famous for being the unofficial premier tour director of Skagway, Alaska in the early 1900s. He held many distinct titles, including that of miner, railroad employee, hotel operator, hack service, the town's undertaker, Ford motor car dealer, and a tour guide. Much of Skagway's early history was saved from destruction because of his interest in the city.
Itjen was born in Dorum, Germany. He arrived in the United States on February 5, 1891 in Charleston, South Carolina. Relatives say Itjen denied his German citizenship, claiming he was from Austria, possibly to evade the German draft of the era. From Charleston, Itjen went to Jacksonville, Florida and set up shop as a storekeeper. It is assumed by his descendants, that he met his wife, Lucille Petitclare here, as Lucy's death certificate also notes that she had several cousins in Florida.
Introduction to the Klondike (1898)
Itjen came to Skagway, Alaska from Jacksonville, Florida, as a stampeder, in the spring of 1898, at the height of the Klondike gold rush. He later sent for his wife, Lucy, to join him in Skagway. He tried his luck at prospecting. Itjen took up employment working for the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad, while seeking his fortune in gold prospecting. Becoming overly successful at neither, he went into the undertaking business. Between 1915 and 1917 He ran a hack service. It was a wagon that he used as a tour taxi and a coal hauling business.
The Skagway "Streetcar"
When business was slow he built a tour bus from an old Ford bus. Itjen referred to it as a "streetcar." He began giving tours of the gold rush town. By the 1930s he became Skagway's premier tour agent. The most picturesque car carried a bear cub on the front, the bear growling and pointing to the right or left as the car turned. A small mannequin on the front was operated by foot pedal. He nodded his head, waved a flag, rang a bell, and puffed exhaust smoke through a cigarette. One of the buses had an effigy of Soapy Smith that with the pull of a handle, Itjen would make Soapy salute walking pedestrians as he passed them. The buses toured the streets of Skagway and visited the Gold Rush Cemetery and other Skagway attractions. Itjen's tour was quite a show: He recited poetry, told stories, and related humorous anecdotes of Skagway during the gold rush.
In 1935, as a great publicity stunt, Itjen took his "street car" to Hollywood to promote Skagway tourism. He called on big screen starlet, Mae West, to "come up and visit him sometime." The pair was popular with newsmen and photographers. While in the movie capital, Itjen attracted numerous screen queens to his side for photographs. Skagway had become a tourist stop, thanks to Itjen.
In 1938 Itjen published a book (first edition 1934) and an LP (long playing) record, entitled, The Story of the Tour on the Skagway, Alaska Street Car. Itjen's tours were theatrical productions, complete with motorized mechanical actors, poetry and humorous anecdotes, all relating to the colorful history of Skagway and its inhabitants.
Soapy Smith Museum
Itjen branched out to become the badly needed caretaker of the city's gold rush cemetery. This included badman Soapy Smith's grave, who was at the height of power when Itjen arrived, and was killed in Skagway at the Shootout on Juneau Wharf. A postcard from the era shows Itjen, just outside the graveyard, showing off the world's largest nugget, chained to a tree with a huge chain. In reality, it was just a huge boulder that Itjen had painted gold. In 1935 Itjen purchased and restored Soapy's saloon as part of his streetcar tour. Upon opening the front door to enter, guests were greeted by an effigy of Soapy Smith standing at the bar. With Itjen's mechanical artistry, the front door made Soapy's head turn towards the entering guests, as his hand, complete with beer mug, raised in a toast of welcoming.
Martin Itjen's grave
Itjen died on December 3, 1942, and his wife Lucy died December 27, 1946. They are buried very near the "world's largest nugget". Their home has been restored by the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, and is used as the museum gift store managed by Alaska Geographic.
The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 1,000,000 visitors each year. Incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007, it was previously a city in the Skagway-Yakutat-Angoon Census Area. The most populated community is the census-designated place of Skagway.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
The White Pass and Yukon Route is a Canadian and U.S. Class III 3 ft narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route.
The District of Alaska was the federal government’s designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884, to August 24, 1912, when it became Alaska Territory. Previously (1867–1884) it had been known as the Department of Alaska, a military designation.
The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.
White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, is a mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the border of the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, Canada. It leads from Skagway, Alaska, to the chain of lakes at the headwaters of the Yukon River, Crater Lake, Lake Lindeman, and Bennett Lake.
Dyea is a former town in the U.S. state of Alaska. A few people live on individual small homesteads in the valley; however, it is largely abandoned. It is located at the convergence of the Taiya River and Taiya Inlet on the south side of the Chilkoot Pass within the limits of the Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska. During the Klondike Gold Rush prospectors disembarked at its port and used the Chilkoot Trail, a Tlingit trade route over the Coast Mountains, to begin their journey to the gold fields around Dawson City, Yukon, about 800 km (500 mi) away. Confidence man and crime boss Soapy Smith, famous for his underworld control of the neighboring town of Skagway in 1897–98 is believed to have had control of Dyea as well.
The Klondike Highway is a highway that runs from the Alaska Panhandle through the province of British Columbia and the territory of Yukon in Canada, linking the coastal town of Skagway, Alaska, to Dawson City, Yukon. Its route somewhat parallels the route used by prospectors in the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
Klondike may refer to:
Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II was an American con artist and gangster in the American frontier.
Robert Carlin Donahue Jr., better known as "Buckwheat" Donahue, was an American folklorist, storyteller, entertainer, historian, adventurer, and four-time gold-panning champion, best known for his involvement in many different aspects of life in Alaska's Inside Passage. Although known for his time in and work with Alaska, he was born and died in Oklahoma.
"The King of the Klondike" or "The Argonaut of White Agony Creek" is a 1993 Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. It is the eighth of the original 12 chapters in the series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The story takes place from 1896 to 1897 and deals with Scrooge McDuck who participates in the Klondike Gold Rush. It takes place before The Prisoner of White Agony Creek and The Hearts of the Yukon.
The Skagway Historic District and White Pass is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing a significant portion of the area within the United States associated with the Klondike Gold Rush. It includes the historic portion of Skagway, Alaska, including the entire road grid of the 1897 town, as well as the entire valley on the United States side of White Pass all the way to the Canada–US border. This area includes surviving fragments of three historic routes used during the Gold Rush, as well as the route of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. Almost 100 buildings remain from the Gold Rush period. Portions of the district are preserved as part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Shootout on Juneau Wharf was a gunfight between Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith, Frank H. Reid, and Jesse Murphy that took place on Friday, July 8, 1898, at approximately 9:15 p.m. in Skagway, District of Alaska, in the United States. Smith was shot in the heart and died shortly afterwards, and Reid died of his injuries 12 days later.
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
Frank H. Reid was an American soldier, teacher, city engineer, vigilante, and one of the combatants in the shootout on Juneau Wharf that ended the life of American outlaw Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, as well as Reid's own life.
Thomas or Tom S. Lippy was an American millionaire and philanthropist who became wealthy as a prospector in the Klondike Gold Rush.
Case & Draper was a photographic studio partnership in Skagway, Alaska, between William Howard Case and Horace H. Draper. Their work included photographs of the Tlingit, portraits, scenery, and gold rush era images. Digital collections of their work are available at the Orbis Cascade Alliance and the Alaska State Library, which has images of their photographic tent as well as their dog team and sled in front of their store. From 1907 to 1914, the studio was known as Draper and Co.
Robert Edwards Sheldon Jr. was an American automobile enthusiast, businessman, government official and politician. As a boy, Sheldon accompanied his father to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush and remained there the rest of his life. He built the first automobile in Alaska, was the first to drive an automobile from Fairbanks to Valdez, and championed the construction of roads in Alaska as the state road commissioner. Sheldon served in two sessions of the Alaska Territorial Legislature and two terms in the Alaska State Legislature. He was variously a power company engineer, the postmaster for Fairbanks, the general manager for the Mt. McKinley Tourist & Transportation Company, and the executive director of the Unemployment Compensation Commission of Alaska.
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