Military history of Alaska from 1867 through the 1950s
The Chilkat Pass corridor, crossing the Coast Mountains in Southeast Alaska, connects Lynn Canal with the Kluane Lake area of the Yukon Territory. The 1977 environmental impact statement for the Shakwak Project, a joint...
Murphy Dome, named by prospectors in the early 1900s, is a 2,930-foot-tall mountain 20 miles northwest of Fairbanks. It is the highest point in the area, and with a summit almost 2,500 feet above...
Immediately preceding and during World War II the Civilian Aeronautics Authority (CAA was the predecessor to the FAA) built and upgraded airports across the United States as part of a national defense program. Theresa...
In 1904 the U.S. Army’s Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS) was completed. According to George Todd’s undated publication, “Early Radio Communications in the Thirteenth Naval District Washington, Oregon and Alaska,” that same...
A portion of the Alaska Military Telephone Line along the Alaska Highway near the Canadian border The Alaska Highway, built in 1942, was not the only World War II-era construction project linking Alaska with...
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,...
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...
Kulis Air National Guard Base in the early 1960s, with a Fairchild C-123J parked in front. According to National Park Service documents, Alaska’s first Air National Guard unit, the 8144th Air Base Squadron,...
Ladd Field commander’s quarters on North Post. Completed in 1941, it is one of the oldest buildings on Fort Wainwright Ladd Field, now Fort Wainwright, began as a cold-weather testing facility. Named after...
When I wrote my post about construction of the Alaska Highway I mentioned the “Northern Staging Route,” the series of airfields through which military aircraft were ferried from the U.S. to the Soviet...
