Skagway was known to thousands of hopeful gold rushers as the gateway to the gold fields.  Although it boasted the shortest route to the Klondike, it was far from being the easiest.  1997 marks the centennial celebration of the beginning of the White Pass route through the Coast Mountains and the shorter, but steeper, Chilkoot Trail, both of which were used by countless stampeders.  The treacherous Chilkoot Trail, combined with the area's cruel elements, left scores dead.  The gold rush was a boon to Skagway – by 1998 it was Alaska's largest town with a population of about 20,000.  The town's hotels, saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses prospered, drawing Skagway residents as well as the 10,000 people living in the tent city of nearby Dyea.  But when the gold yield dwindled in 1900, so did the population of Skagway as the miners quickly shifted to new finds in Nome.  Today Skagway has less than 1,000 residents, but it retains the flavor of the gold rush era, especially on Broadway, with its false-front buildings, and in the Trail of '98 Museum, with its outstanding collection of memorabilia.