Yukon Register of Historic PlacesYRHP

Euro-colonial settlement began at Robinson with the White Pass Railway, which constructed between Skagway and Whitehorse in 1898-99. A parallel track, or siding, was built at Robinson to allow trains to pass one another. Robinson siding was a designated “flag station” where the train stopped on an as-need or request basis although no station was built. During the 1906 Wheaton gold rush a railway box car was parked at Robinson to accommodate waiting passengers.

The siding was named for William “Stikine Bill” Robinson who worked on many railway projects including an ill-fated one from Glenora in the Stikine River area. Robinson was head of the grading crew during the White Pass Railway construction and then managed the Red Line Transportation Company that brought construction materials, supplies and commercial freight over the 1899 gap in rail service between the White Pass summit and Carcross.

The Wheaton mining district west of Robinson attracted miners during a staking rush in 1906. White Pass & Yukon Route offered relatively low shipment rates from Robinson to the port at Skagway to encourage development of the region. The Wheaton district miners shipped their ore to Robinson over pack trails and wagon roads, where it was shipped out on the railway. A mine on Carbon Hill shipped ten tons of antimony ore 35 km to Robinson in 1916 and in 1918 the Tally Ho mine brought 14.6 tons of gold/silver/lead ore from Mt. Stevens.

At the peak of the rush, William Grainger and Herman Vance claimed 160 acres on each side of the railway as a townsite—although one never developed because the boom proved short lived. Louis Markel, who had owned the Bon Ton Café in Whitehorse founded the Gold Hill roadhouse and saloon on Grainger’s land.

In 1907 Louis left for Fairbanks selling his interest to his wife Catherine, who immediately made plans to construct a new two storey building. This is likely Block-1 of the extant roadhouse—the oldest still standing structure on site. Catherine operated the roadhouse for the next seven years until 1915. Charles McConnell took over the property and owned it until his death in 1946, after which it was abandoned.

Charles was from PEI and had been firefighter and weightlifter in Maine before coming to the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush and worked freighting for the White Pass during the railway’s construction. In 1908 or 1909 he became the postmaster at Robinson until the office closed in 1915. During this time, gegan farming and assisted with operating the roadhouse. In 1915 he married Florence Parvin and during the next thirty years they operated a sawmill and ranch in addition to the roadhouse. Additionally, they established a boarding stable for horses of the White Pass & Yukon Route and the Canadian Geological Survey.

During construction of the Alaska Highway in the early 1940s, the U.S. Army operated a camp and sawmill at Robinson. During this period, the US Army leased the White Pass Railway and improved the Carcross-Whitehorse Wagon Road (now the South Klondike Highway).

Long before the arrival of railways and miners, this area was an important a crossroads of First Nation travel routes. People travelled from Fish Lake southwest of Whitehorse overland to Robinson and from there to Tagish, Caribou Crossing and even over the mountain passes to the Pacific coast. Other routes led west to Kusawa and Dezadeash lakes. Indigenous families continued to hunt, trap, and travel through the area well into the twentieth century. More research is required to obtain a fuller account of these stories as well as the indigenous names for landmarks in the area.