Remnants of F.E. Company housing line Illinois Street
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...
Tagged: historic sites
Artistic guide to Interior Alaska historic sites project at 80% funding. 14 days till end of Kickstarter campaign. Pledge now.
If you are interested in art, if you are interested in preserving local history, if you are interested in educating people about our Alaska heritage, please help me publish this guide book It will...
Drawing of Kolmakovskly Redount at University of Alaska
Several months ago I did a post on the reconstructed Kolmakovsky Redoubt (a structure from the Russian=Ameican era of Alaska history. I recently did a drawing of the blockhouse and revised and expanded the...
“Interior Sketches” guide to Interior Alaska historic sites – A Kickstarter project
For the past year, readers of my newspaper column (which appears in my blog as the pen and ink drawings and historical essays) have been urging me to publish a book. I have checked...
The Falcon Joslin House stands out as a Fairbanks icon
The Falcon Joslin House, 413 Cowles St., stands as testament to the determination of Falcon Joslin, the builder of the Tanana Valley Railroad and one of the earliest promoters of the Tanana Valley. It...
New transportation routes bring life–and death–to Doyle’s and other Alaska Roadhouses
The Richardson Highway, like many roads in Alaska, has been rerouted many times. Its predecessor, the Valdez-Fairbanks Trail, experienced the same growing pains. Soon after the Valdez-Eagle Trail (the Trans-Alaska Military Road) was blazed...
Samppi Mine near Chatanika typical of old drift mines that dot Interior Alaska
The giant dredges scattered along the creeks around Fairbanks are testament to the decades when dredging dominated local gold production, just as the headframes and mill buildings in the hills are reminders of hard-rock...
Immaculate Conception Church a moving experience
Some buildings, because of location or design, are picturesque from the moment they are completed. Others acquire character as they settle into the landscape. Immaculate Conception Church has had its charm bequeathed to it...
Creamer’s Dairy an iconic part of Fairbanks history and landscape
The farmhouse and barns at Creamer’s Dairy (constructed between 1905 and 1950) could easily have been lost. The dairy closed in 1966, the victim of changing market conditions and new health regulations brought about...
A walk down Cowles Street in Fairbanks is a stroll through history
If you want to get a feel for Fairbanks history, a good place to start is by walking down Cowles Street from 1st Avenue at the Chena River to the Noel Wein Library. Cowles...
