Marvin Taylor (1922 – 1976)

Marvin Taylor was born in Gladley, West Virginia and came north with the United States Army in 1942. He served with the transportation corps between 1942 and 1945 and also saw service with the naval petroleum reserve #4 at Barrow, Alaska. He joined White Pass & Yukon Route as a railway ticket agent in 1948. He was Skagway’s city treasurer and then mayor in 1947-48. He was president of the Skagway school board and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He was White Pass vice-president when he left the company in 1974. He rejoined the company in 1980 as manager of rail and the Alaska operations.¹⁾

Taylor moved to Whitehorse in 1985. In 1988, the Yukon NDP and the Yukon Fuel Pricing Inquiry accused White Pass of taking advantage from the lack of competition. Taylor worked for the Yukon as chair of the Yukon Anniversaries Commission. In 1995, he retired as White Pass chief operating officer and moved back to Skagway.²⁾

Over his career, Marvin Taylor saw many changes and he supervised the first use of cats, replacing the rotary ploughs to clear snow from the tracks. In 1998, Tom King, president and chief operating officer of the White Pass group of companies, commented that the railway was Taylor’s lifeblood.³⁾