Marge Gull painting of Yost’s (McCallum’s) Roadhouse, Mile 203 of Valdez-Fairbanks Trail
Yost’s (McCallum”s) Roadhouse at Mile 203 of Valdez-Fairbanks Trail. Nothing is left of the roadhouse.
The painting is of McCallum’s or Yost’s Roadhouse, at Mile 203 of the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail. In 1905 a Mrs. McCallum began operating a roadhouse out of a small single-story log cabin on the east bank of Phelan Creek, just downstream from McCallum Creek. The Washington-Alaska Military Telegraph and Cable system built a telegraph station about 1/3 mile away.
Charlie Yost took over the roadhouse in the winter of 1906-07 and built a two-story log building next to the old structure. The roadhouse was located along one of the worst sections of trail during winter, and it was often buried to its eaves by snow. When the winds off Gulkana Glacier whipped blizzards down Phelan Creek, often the only way to find the roadhouse was following wires stretched across the creek, and listening for the sound of the bell mounted on a post outside the roadhouse.
Yost’s Roadhouse only lasted until the mid 1910s. Severe flooding forced its abandonment in 1916, although the buildings continued to be used seasonally by hunters. All evidence of the roadhouse has been obliterated by Phelan Creek. For more information on Yost’s, follow this link.
Genevieve Marguerite (Marge) Gull (who died in 2013) came to Alaska with her husband in 1938, living first in Fairbanks and then Anchorage. She was an amateur painter and painted 49 of the roadhouses along the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail.
I assume that at least some of her paintings were done from photographs since many of the roadhouses disappeared long before Marge came to Alaska. This painting is in the collection of the Valdez Museum. I’ll be adding more paintings periodically. For more of Marge’s paintings follow this link
