Category: Central Interior Alaska

Small draglines like this were once common at placer gold-mining operations. They were used for excavating and for loading elevated sluice boxes.

P&H dragline at Pioneer Park represents early 1900s industrial innovation

When gold was discovered in Alaska at the end of the 19th century, it was individual miners who initially exploited the resource using picks and shovels and other rudimentary equipment. As easy diggings disappeared,...

SS Nenana’s $3 million restoration project starts this summer

This article is reprinted from the 1-14-2022 edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Photo and story by Amanda Bohman A 237-foot wooden steam-powered sternwheeler with five decks that was famous for plying Interior Alaska...

Phillips Field served Fairbanks aviation community’s needs for 40 years

Phillips Field served Fairbanks aviation community’s needs for 40 years

During Fairbanks’ post-World War II population boom, development pressure forced the relocation of the community’s airport, Weeks Field. The airport, less than a mile from downtown, moved eight miles farther away, to its present...

This Dunkel Street cabin is one of the oldest buildings in downtown Fairbanks

The small log cabin shown in the drawing is located at 105 Dunkel Street,  just to the west of the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center in downtown Fairbanks. It is a unique part...

The Tolovana Tram, early Livengood’s jury-rigged transport system

Jay Livengood and Teddy Hudson discovered gold in the headwaters of the Tolovana River in 1914, leading to a minor gold rush in 1915. The resulting camp (eventually named Livengood) was remote, even though...

The origins of Poker Flat Research Range

Poker Flat Research Range, owned and operated by the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute (GI), is a rocket range located at Chatanika, 30 miles north of Fairbanks. Construction on the facility began in 1968,...

Deadwood Cemetery burials tell the history of Central area in Interior Alaska

Turning on to Circle Hot Springs Road at Central and driving about 3/4 mile, you come to Cemetery Road just before crossing Graveyard Creek. About 1/2 mile along Cemetery Road lies a small burial...

Tall caches were once common in Alaska

Tall cache that used to stand at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks In modern Alaska, elevated storage caches (sometimes called fish or bear caches) typically consist of small rustic log cabins built atop four canted...

Fairbanks Aeromedical Lab was a Cold War program to study the Arctic

  The Arctic Aeromedical Lab building in Fairbanks, now the Fairbanks offices for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.   Alaska has been a U.S. possession since 1867. However,...

Ester studio evokes memory of painter, Rusty Heurlin

Rusty Heurlin’s studio in Ester in the early winter of 2017 The cabin in the drawing was the studio for Alaska painter, Magnus Colcord “Rusty” Heurlin. Matthew Reckard, the artist’s neighbor, recently showed me...