Old Paxson Roadhouse crumbling into ruin
I took this photo at the beginning of “summer,” and just came across it again. This is one of the original Paxson roadhouses, about a 1/2 mile north of Paxson Lodge. It is across...
Category: Transportation history
1940s Quick-Way Truck Shovel crane on Brockway Chassis near Ester
Here is a 1940s era Quick-Way truck-mounted crane sitting on a Brockway chassis. It is located along the Parks Highway near Ester. According to an article on the ConstructionEquipment.Com website, in 1922, a prototype truck-mounted...
Railroad changed Nenana forever
Nenana depot as it looked in 2012 In March 1914, Congress authorized the construction of a government railroad in the Territory of Alaska. The northern terminus of the railroad would be in Fairbanks,...
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...
Taku Chief a relic of Interior Alaska’s early riverboat days
When the tug boat Taku Chief began its career in Southeast Alaska in 1938, the age of steamboating on Interior Alaska rivers was dying. Gold mining, which had spurred a few decades of frenetic...
Vintage crawler tractors at Central, Alaska
Caterpillar Thirty Here are two crawler tractors I saw at the Circle Mining District Historical Museum in Central. McCormick Deering T40
Another old Illinois Street building bites the dust
Up until last summer this building stood at 270 Illinois Street. It was one of the buildings occupied by OK Lumber, which went out of business several years ago. The Alaska Railroad Corporation,...
Charles Adams and the S.S. Lavelle Young were icons of Alaska steamboating
The S.S. Lavelle Young at Fairbanks in 1904 Two riverboats are represented at Pioneer Park: the S.S. Lavelle Young (first commercial steamboat to navigate the Chena River in 1901), and the S.S. Nenana (last...
Tanana Valley Railroad–The Gold Dust Line
TVRR Engine No. 1 at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks When Falcon Joslin, the mastermind behind the Tanana Valley Railroad, began work on the line in 1904, he envisioned a railroad stretching from Fairbanks to...
Museum at Central, Alaska shows early dog sled development
The Circle District Historical Society Museum in Central, Alaska houses several lovely old dog sleds, including some that would be familiar to most Alaskans—“basket” sleds with runners. But one different type of sled, what...
