The Red Onion Saloon in Skagway was built in 1897 to service men during the gold rush. It opened in 1898 and remains open today as a bar and restaurant. For $10 you can get a tour of the old brothel upstairs. Tours can be booked online or in person when you visit.

It was very crowded when I stopped by in the afternoon. There is a line just to get your name on the list for a table. 

They do have a menu in the window so you can decide what you want while you’re waiting for a table. 

Usually when I come across a place with a wait for table I’m able to weasel my way into an open bar spot. This place was no different.

Here is a look at the beer selection.

 I ordered an Alaskan Amber.

It looks like I only got the drink menu. You can find a current copy of the full menu here.

 

That’s where you go for the brothel tour. An announcement will be made at the time of the tour.

If you have an open check you can have your brothel tour added to it or pay the lady at the door. I ordered another beer and added the tour to my check.

It’s tour time.

The tour times are listed here. They do six tours per day.

You also get one of these with the price of admission.

This room was added on in 2002 but it has some original items in it.

This is an actual roulette wheel that was used in Skagway. It has a switch on back to stop it where the dealer wanted it to stop.  

This red lamp was outside of the red onion. That indicated that prostitution happened here. If you’ve heard of a “red light district,” this is where that came from. 

Up the stairs to the left is where the actual brothel was located. 

This red shade is where the bouncer would be leading to the hallway.

This room would’ve been the hallway with the bouncer on the left and three rooms on the right.

Downstairs they had dolls depicting the women. Men would pick from the dolls. When a man went up the respective doll was placed on its back for 15 minutes.

The price was $5 for 15 minutes. Girls made $1.25, the bouncer made $1.25, and the madam made $2.50.

5 x $1 coins were given to the girl at the beginning and dropped into a slot at the end. When the bartender heard the coins and saw the man return he would take the respective doll off of its back. 

There is one surviving coin slot but the photo did not come out. There’s a spot on the floor where you can see where it was.

Items in the display case were found hidden in the floor 80 years later by the current owners of Red Onion Saloon.

Built 1897 opened 1898
15k men in Skagway and 300 working women
$5/15 mins

This building has the original knob and tube wiring. It also powers the visitors center across the street. This is not legal in most places.

This could be a piece of original carpeting but it wasn’t covered (pun intended).

Skagway had 15,000 men and 300 working women. There was a battle between this 10 other brothels for the best girls. One thing The Red Onion offered that others didn’t was customizing their wallpaper. One room was found to have 18 layers of wallpaper. Some of the wallpaper is displayed here.

This is original wallpaper in the hallway.

This is an original dress believed to have belonged to a madam. It weighs 15 pounds.

This is a room setup like one of the rooms. 

This is the madam’s room.

At the end you are able to take pictures with the tour guide if you want to.

This is the exit.

Which takes you down into the gift shop.

In 1901 the ground floor of this building changed to telegraph office. Over the years it also was a dance hall, bakery, army barracks, union hall, laundry shop, gift shop, and a TV station. But the upstairs rooms were never touched.

They say the upstairs portion is haunted by a woman named Lydia who lived and died there. She wears a black dress and smells of perfume. The police have even been called on her.