History of Alaskan railroads: Alaska Railroad, Tanana Valley Railroad, White Pass & Yukon Route Railway, Copper River and Northwestern Railway and more
The old railroad depot in Seward is testament to the travails the city has gone through as a railroad town. Although constructed in 1917, the depot’s history can be traced back to the advent...
Prior to construction of the Alaska Railroad through the Matanuska Valley, there was little development in the area that would one day be Palmer. One of the first white men in the valley was...
Sutton, about 15 miles northeast of Palmer on the Glenn Highway, owes its existence to coal mining. Geologist G.C. Martin explored the area for the U.S.G.S in 1905 and reported an estimated 61 square...
Nellie Neal Lawing was born in 1873 and grew up on a Missouri farm. According to her 1940 autobiography, “Alaska Nellie,” since childhood she had an adventuresome spirit, and her mother called her “half...
Kenai Lake, located 20 miles north of Resurrection Bay on the Kenai Peninsula, has hosted visitors since the early 1900s. During the Cook Inlet gold rush in the mid to late 1890s a winter-only...
Mines in the Wrangell Mountains, 65 miles east of Chitina and only a few miles south of McCarthy, were world-class copper producers during the early 1900s. However, by the 1930s the copper reserves were...
John Ballaine was the entrepreneur primarily responsible for initiating construction of the Alaska Central Railway (ACR) across the Kenai Peninsula. He is also credited with founding the town on Seward, the southern terminus of...
During and right after World War II there was a rapid influx of people into the Fairbanks area as the U.S. military expanded its presence. With the increased demands on the Alaska Railroad during...
The engine in the drawing is Alaska Railroad No. 557, a Consolidation-type steam locomotive. Consolidation is the U.S. designation for the locomotive’s wheel-configuration – 2-8-0 – with 2 leading wheels, 8 drive wheels, and...
From the 1911 completion of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CR&NW) until the mid 1930s, Cordova’s economy was primarily dependent on the railway and the shipment of copper ore from the mines at...
