A city of 600 souls swelled to 3,600 in April of 1942 when regiments of the Corps of Engineers, including the 93rd took over their harbor, buildings, airfield and railroad. The origin of the path from the sea to the interior and central portion of the Alaska Highway Project, Skagway became a major military troop and supply transport center. The first regiment to arrive, the 18th, didn’t stay long. They moved on over White Pass to Whitehorse almost immediately. The 93rd, the second regiment to arrive, stayed a little longer before boarding the narrow gauge railroad and travelling to their ultimate destination in Carcross. Their first mission was to build a road from Carcross to the Teslin River – a pathway for the 340th.
The arrival of the 340th overlapped that of the 93rd. The first battalion moved directly to Whitehorse. The second stayed in Skagway waiting for the 93rd to build their path to the Teslin River. After the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor, panicky commanders ordered the 340th to guard the harbor at Skagway – they had rifles but no ammo.
After the regiments moved on, their equipment and supplies followed them. The 375th Port Battalion moved cargo from vessels in the harbor to the cars of the WP&YT.Featuring a small area and a twenty foot tide, Skagway Harbor could be difficult for stevedores. Initially the 375th made do by beaching barges on the shore and unloading them with crawler cranes
As quickly as possible the Corps improved the harbor by constructing a longer barge slip with a fill that was above high tide.
Lynn Canal and the Skagway Harbor did offer one surprising advantage. Despite winter temperatures as low as 60 below, the constantly moving water of the 2,000 foot deep canal never freezes over.
To get materiel from Skagway to the interior, the Army leased the WP&YT. The daily tonnage hauled over White Pass by the railroad mushroomed from 200 to 2,000.
Even after most of the troops moved to the interior, Skagway remained crowded. Customers stood five deep at the bar of the Pack Train Inn. Employees of Bechtel, Price and Callahan one of the largest of the civilian contractors filled the Golden North Hotel.
Carl Mulvihill, interviewed years later, remembers riding, as a small child in Skagway, in Army trucks to school. Once, he insisted, he even got to make the trip on a grader. The Native children of the Mission School weren’t so lucky.