The area around present-day Skagway was inhabited by Tlingit people since prehistoric times, fishing and hunting in the waters and forests of the area. The word Skagway (originally spelled Skaguay) is from the Tlingit name meaning "windy place with white caps on the water." In 1887 the Skagway Valley was homesteaded by Bill Moore and his family. They were the only non-Native inhabitants of the area for 10 years until the news of the Klondike Gold Rush reached Seattle and San Francisco. Within months, the valley was flooded with gold-seekers with little regard for laws, property ownership, or ancestral subsistence rights. Within a year Skagway was the busiest town in Alaska with stores, banks, restaurants, hotels, dance halls and saloons. At the onset Skagway was completely controlled by one of the most colorful crooks in American history; "Soapy" Smith, he and his gang devised innumerable schemes to swindle gold miners. Today, Skagway is unique among southeast Alaskan communities in that it is one of the only three connected to the road system.