In 1929, C.W. Cash, a sales representative for Northern Commercial Company, traveled through Interior Alaska visiting prospective customers. While at Manley Hot Springs, a small isolated community along the Tanana River, he met with...
A small industrial locomotive in front of the railroad depot in Palmer is a reminder of the Matanuska Valley’s coal-mining past. Engine No. 5 is a narrow-gauge Baldwin 0-4-0T saddletank locomotive. The 0-4-0 represents...
Drawing of gold rush-era wheelman based on photo from Selid-Bassoc collection, University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives Many people view winter biking as a recent phenomenon. However, bicycles came north with gold-seekers over 100 years...
On a hillside along the Steese Highway south of Fox, Alaska sits a relic of the Cold War, a “sno-freighter” used in the mid-1950s to move supplies from Central Alaska to the Arctic coast...
Bucyrus 20-B steam shovel at Usibelli Coal Mine in 2014 In 1907, at the age of 14, Emil Usibelli emigrated from Italy to the United States. Settling in Washington state, he worked a variety...
Fordson snow tractor outside the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum in Fairbanks The odd-looking contraption in the drawing is a Fordson “Snow Motor,” also called a snow tractor. It is basically a Fordson tractor (built...
The Richardson Highway stretches 368 miles from Valdez on Prince William Sound to Fairbanks in the Tanana River Valley. In its earliest form — the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail — it was the dominant overland route...
We were up at Chena Hot Springs Resort yesterday and I took photos of the old equipment there. Here are three farm tractors on display. Ford Model T tractor conversion Ford Ferguson Allis Chalmers...
The smallest bulldozer I have ever seen was in the Golden Days Parade on Saturday. It is a Beetle, built by Western Gear Works of Seattle in the late 1940s. The Beetle was developed...
The vehicle in the drawing is a 1942 GMC dump truck sitting on a hillside at about 1620 Mile of the Alaska Highway. Stenciled on the door is “Department of Commerce, Civil Aeronautics Administration.”...
