Alexander Gagoff (~1885 - 1916)
Alexander Gagoff was born in Russia and served in a military organization, the Cossacks.1) He arrived in the Yukon in 1914 with the Mischenko party of forty or more Russians. They built boats in Whitehorse and travelled down the Yukon River to prospect. Gagoff returned from Dawson to Whitehorse in the summer of 1914, stayed in town for the winter and worked the next spring on a WP&YR railroad crew under Pat Winslow. He quit his job in May and travelled outside to Vancouver and Seattle. Gagoff spoke poor English and always suspected that others were making fun of him.2)
Back in Whitehorse, on October 1, 1915, Gagoff shot Pat Kinslow, George Lane and Tom Bokonich, and fatally wounded Henry Cook while they were working on the railroad three miles south of Whitehorse. Arthur Wilkins fled for his life and escaped. Gagoff was tried by judge and a jury of Isaac Taylor, W.C. Sime, P. Martin, E. A. Dixon, T.C. Richards and George Wilson.3) Gagoff was hanged on March 10, 1916.4)