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...
The Glenn Highway, which winds along the Matanuska River before climbing over Tahneta Pass to the Copper River Basin, opened in 1943. In the late 1940s the roughly 145-mile section of narrow, gravel-surfaced road...
Charles E. Brown and Thomas William “T.W.” Hawkins both came to Alaska in 1898. Brown entered the territory via the route pioneered by the Hudson’s Bay Company – the McKenzie, Rat and Porcupine rivers,...
Merle “Smitty” Smith, who is now known by his more colorful nickname, “Mudhole,” became enamored of flying at an early age. According to Lone Janson’s 1981 biography of him, Smitty, who was born and...
The Alaska Railroad Depot in Anchorage is located at 411 W. First Ave., on the south side of Ship Creek at the base of the bluff on which downtown Anchorage sits. Early photos, taken...
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,...
The U.S. Congress passed The Alaska Railroad Act in March 1914, authorizing construction of a federally-owned railway from an ice-free port on Alaska’s southern coast to Fairbanks in the territory’s Interior. President Woodrow Wilson...
James Casey set up a primitive roadhouse (just a few tents and tarps) along the Delta River, possibly as early as 1901. It was located at what would become Mile 212.5 of the Valdez-Fairbanks...
The portion of the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail crossing the Alaska Range at Isabel Pass was one of the most dangerous sections of the trail. The distance between Paxson’s Roadhouse, on the south side of Isabel...
Numerous routes were considered for a railway to the Kennecott copper mines in the Wrangell Mountains. The most direct route was along the Copper River, but engineers hired by the Alaska Syndicate (which controlled...
