Category: Alaska Road Commission

Glennallen library in the 1970s. It began in the early 1940s as an Alaska Road Commission office during cosntruction of the Glenn Highway

Glennallen began as World War II era construction camp for Glenn Highway

Glennallen , situated at the junction of the Glenn and Richardson Highways, started as a highway construction camp just prior to the 1941 entry of the United States into World War II. Relations between...

Messhall and Bunkhouse in Chitina among few remaining Copper River and Northwestern Railway buildings

    The CR&NW messhall and bunkhouse in Chitina in the 1980s The two buildings shown in the drawing are in Chitina. They were built as a messhall and bunkhouse for the Copper River...

The East Fork Cabin at Denali National Park and Preserve – Adolf Murie’s base camp for pioneering wolf studies

The East Fork (Murie) cabin in the 1990s As early as 1922, rangers erected a tent near the confluence of the East Fork of the Toklat River and Coal Creek (43 miles from park...

Brushkana Creek cabin a remnant of Denali transportation history

Brushkana Creek cabin in 2013 The Alaska Road Commission (ARC) cabin on Brushkana Creek (shown in drawing) is one of the few remnants of the Cantwell-Valdez Creek Trail. Bruskana is a clearwater stream that...

Alaska Road Commission’s Big Delta ferry – of roads, truckers and tolls

Ferryman’s cabin at Big Delta When the Alaska Road Commission (ARC) was created in 1905, it undertook the herculean task of building roads and trails throughout the Territory.  One of its first projects was...

Denali Highway–Hiking Brushkana Creek Trail to old Alaska Road Commission cabin

We drove the Denali Highway Thursday. Friday and Saturday–stayed at Brushkana campground on Friday night. The campground, maintained by the Bureau of Land Management, is a lovely little facility on the banks of Brushkana...

Sullivan Roadhouse finds rebuilt life in Delta Junction

John and Florence Sullivan (veterans of the Klondike, Nome and Fairbanks gold rushes) built a sod-roofed log roadhouse during the winter of 1905-06 midway along the 55-mile-long Donnelly-Washburn Cut-off. The cut-off was a Valdez-Fairbanks...

Doyle's Roadhouse (now abandoned) at Gakona

New transportation routes bring life–and death–to Doyle’s and other Alaska Roadhouses

The Richardson Highway, like many roads in Alaska, has been rerouted many times. Its predecessor, the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail, experienced the same growing pains. Soon after the Valdez-Eagle Trail (the Trans-Alaska Military Road) was blazed...

Exploring Boundary and Top of the World Highway

  Boundary Roadhouse in 2000 When the military road from Fort Liscum in Valdez to Fort Egbert in Eagle was “completed” in 1900 it was little more than a rough trail suitable only for...

Another old Illinois Street building bites the dust

  Up until last summer this building stood at 270 Illinois Street. It was one of the buildings occupied by OK Lumber, which went out of business several years ago. The Alaska Railroad Corporation,...