Chatanika Gold Camp as it looked in 1994 On a southeast-facing hill just north of Mile 27.5 of the Steese Highway sits Chatanika Gold Camp. The camp used to be the Fairbanks Exploration Company’s...
North side of blacksmith shop at Fairbanks Creek Camp in early spring of 1994 Gold Dredge No. 2, located about 20 miles northeast of Fairbanks at Fairbanks Creek, was one of Fairbanks Exploration Company’s...
Pump House Restaurant in Fall 2013 The Pump House Restaurant is one of the premiere dining establishments in the Fairbanks area, but more than 80 years ago it began its life as a different...
Chicken dredge in 1999 The Fairbanks Exploration Company’s (FE Co.) Dredge No. 4 (also called the Pedro dredge) in Chicken originally operated along Pedro Creek just north of Fairbanks. Built by the Yuba Manufacturing...
Old Chicken schoolhouse as it looked in the 1990s The first time we visited Chicken in the 1990s there was little you could see from the Taylor highway. Downtown Chicken (adjacent to the highway)...
For more than 30 years, the Fairbanks Exploration Company maintained a small company enclave at the north end of Illinois Street. The west side of the street was where the company’s office and...
The Ester Gold Camp hotel, constructed in the 1930s, was originally a mess hall-bunkhouse for the Fairbanks Exploration Company. The structure is at the center of Ester Camp Historic District, located in Ester,...
Davidson Ditch inverted siphon across U.S. Creek “Ditch” is such a mundane word and certainly doesn’t accurately describe the Davidson Ditch, the 90-mile long system of open earthwork canals, steel pipe and tunnel that...
The Fairbanks Exploration Company’s Gold Dredge No. 8 at Fox (shown in the drawing) is perhaps the most visible and well-known dredge in the Fairbanks area, but the FE Co. actually operated eight of...
The Illinois Street project is bittersweet for me. While it will improve traffic flow through downtown Fairbanks and eliminate some awkward and dangerous traffic situations, it also took out several historic buildings. One of...
