Charge an entrance fee at the Jeff Smiths Parlor Museum

In 2008, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, in partnership with the Borough of Skagway and the Rasmussen Foundation, acquired the George and Edna Rapuzzi collection. This collection includes over 450,000 gold rush era and early Skagway artifacts and five buildings. The Jeff Smiths Parlor Museum and its contents, one of the most significant components of the Rapuzzi collection, was directly transferred to the park. Over the last seven years, the park painstakingly stabilized and restored the building and curated a vast array of unique artifacts with the intent to reopen the building to the public. Although Jeff. Smith Parlor offers an extraordinary resource and opportunity for visitors to understand and connect with the Skagway's gold rush past, the building size and artifact security present several challenges. The building's small size limits access to no more than ten visitors in one of the three rooms at a time. Furthermore, artifacts displayed within the building are directly accessible which require NPS presence and close monitoring for collection security. These factors limit visitor access and create a staff intensive operational burden on the park. Operating the Jeff Smith Parlor with the current funding and staff will reduce the park's overall visitor service capacity. In order to maintain the current array of free visitor services including daily operation of a visitor center and museum, Junior Ranger Activity Center, historic Moore Homestead, and dozens of daily interpretive historic walks, and Dyea town site tours, KLGO proposes to utilize 1A2G authority to charge an admission fee to the Jeff Smith Parlor Museum.

Charging a fee at the Jeff Smiths Parlor Museum will enable the park to hire additional interpreters, maintain a newly restored building, give the park capability to offer more visitors opportunities to enjoy a quality experience at the Jeff Smiths Parlor Museum, and increase the overall number of visitors served.

Contact Information

Benjamin Hayes, Chief of Interpretation
907.983.9206