Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE YUKON ADVENTURE 193was incorporated, and governed by a mayor and council.Handsome and commodious administration buildings wereerected, and a well-equipped fire department now protectedthe city. The water supply and general sanitary system wereexcellent, and the city enjoyed a good telephone and electriclight system. About this time gambling was abolished, atall events as a form of public amusement. Drastic restrictionswere placed upon the operations of the dance halls, andthe women could no longer be served a drink on the premises,or in any public bar, as heretofore. Corporations, traders,peddlers and others were called on to bear their share oftaxation. Churches, in one form or another, there had beenfrom the beginning, but now children could goto school. Inshort, Dawson had grown to the stage where the residentsbrought their wives and children to make their homes there.The manager and assistant manager were able to live in theirown houses or cabins, apart from the rest of the staff, whostill continued to occupy the original permanent bank building,although it had been considerably enlarged.As stated in the last chapter, shortly after the Dawsonbranch was opened, the bank established others on the PacificCoast, among them Vancouver and Seattle, the two chiefcentres of trade with the Yukon. Of the others, Skagway,Whitehorse and Atlin were in territory directly tributary toDawson, the first two being the principal stopping places on themain line of travel from Canada and the United States to Dawson,and the third a subsidiary mining camp on the borders ofthe Yukon Territory and British Columbia. The facilitiesafforded by these branches were of very great assistance to thebusiness at Dawson. Atlin was a good though short-lived goldplacer-mining camp, about sixty-five miles from Lake Tagish,and had a population of almost 6,000 in the summer of 1899.Skagway, before the completion of the White Pass and Yukonrailway, did a large business as the seaport on the quickestroute to Dawson, and as the headquarters for the transhipmentand transportation of freight going over the passes. In 1902