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The Alaska Railroad

The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1898, and subsequent gold discoveries in Nome and Fairbanks brought national attention and waves of immigrants to the District of Alaska. Natural resource exports and a growing population were hampered, however, by a lack of transportation infrastructure. A few privately-run railroads operated in the Territory, including the Alaska Central Railway, later named the Alaska Northern Railway; the Copper River and Northwestern Railway operated by the Alaska Syndicate, and the Tanana Valley Railroad. Most of the railroads were primarily built to satisfy the transportation imperative of mining companies to bring resources such as coal from the mines to sea ports. As a result, it was expensive for ordinary people to travel through Alaska and impossible to travel by train through the "heart" of Alaska, the corridor from the port at Anchorage north to Fairbanks. Many of the railroads suffered from poor management, corporate battles, and the constant maintenance needs of railroad operation in a harsh climate. These challenges, along with the assumptions of great mineral wealth to be generated from Alaska, brought Congressional attention. In the 1912 bill that created the Territory of Alaska and allowed Alaskans to form a legislature, language in Section 18 specifically authorized the President to recommend railroad routes that would allow for development of the Alaska Territory.

In the 1912 legislation, Congress provided for the creation of the Alaska Railroad Commission. The four members of the Alaska Railroad Commission, three appointed by President William Taft, spent approximately two months in Alaska and ultimately recommended two routes to Congress, one of which was a route from near Cook Inlet at the end of the Alaska Northern Railway line, through the Matanuska and Susitna Valleys, and over the Alaska Range, to reach the Innoko-Iditarod mining region in the Kuskokwim Valley. President Taft brought these recommendations to Congress just before the end of his term in 1912.

Between 1912 and 1914, during President Woodrow Wilson's administration, Congress debated the funding for the project, ultimately deciding to make the U.S. Government responsible for the cost. An act of Congress in March 1914 authorized the president to designate and construct a railroad in the Alaska Territory that would transport passengers and natural resources such as coal from the interior to ports on the coast. Subsequently that year, President Wilson created the Alaska Engineering Commission (A.E.C.), appointing Chairman William C. Edes, Frederick Mears, and Thomas Riggs, Jr. President Wilson ordered the A.E.C. to survey two areas proposed for railroad construction. One route, known as the "eastern" route, would start from Cordova or Valdez and go north via the Copper River, Tonsina River, Delta River, and Tanana Valley to the vicinity of Fairbanks. The other proposed route, the "western" route, would start at Portage Bay or Seward, travel along the Turnagain and Knik Arms of Cook Inlet, turn north through the Susitna Valley, cross Broad Pass, follow the Nenana River as far as its junction with the Tanana River, and then follow an undetermined path to reach the Fairbanks area. The Commission also decided to send a party to research the possibilities of construction of a branch line from the western route through the Kuskokwim and Iditarod districts. Between June and October 1914, A.E.C. employees surveyed both proposed routes and one group, led by engineer James McPherson, reconnoitered the Kuskokwim district. McPherson traveled in roughly the same area as the Government Winter Trail, established in 1908, which follows a similar route to the contemporary Iditarod Trail. The proposed branch line through the Kuskokwim area was never built; however, McPherson's extensive documentation of the trip constitutes a valuable record of this part of Alaska.

After receiving the Commission report, on April 10, 1915 President Wilson issued an executive order to build a main railroad line on the "western" route that would begin at Seward, run north to a new portage that would soon become Anchorage, and continue north to reach Fairbanks. Wilson's order also directed the Commission to construct a branch line to the Matanuska Coal Fields, and to purchase the 70 miles of Alaska Northern Railway track already existing north of Seward for incorporation into the U.S. government's new railroad.

Construction on the Alaska Railroad began in 1915 and continued until 1923. Construction crews worked first in the area around Anchorage and the Turnagain Arm on Cook Inlet, as well as much farther north in the Talkeetna River area. Early construction also focused on developing the Matanuska Branch Line which was key to bring coal to Anchorage, where it could be shipped for export. Railroad crews had to contend with snow and ice for much of the year as well as annual spring floods caused by the "break-up," the melting of iced-over rivers which often resulted in damage to railroad lines and bridges. Despite the danger and difficulty of railroad building, the construction of the Alaska Railroad resulted in the development of many towns along the railroad line.

The Alaska Railroad still exists today. In 1983, the U.S. Government transferred ownership of the railroad to the state of Alaska. The Alaska Railroad is operated by the Alaska Railroad Corporation, which is owned by the state of Alaska but incorporated and run as a private business.

The Kuskokwim Reconnaissance

From June to September 1914, civil engineer and Seattle resident James Lennox McPherson led a seven man and twenty packhorse expedition on a survey across interior Alaska. The A.E.C. assigned McPherson to research the feasibility of building a branch railroad from Anchorage west to the mining districts on the Kuskokwim and Iditarod Rivers.

The Kuskokwim Reconnaissance survey party (known as Party No. 11 to the A.E.C.) embarked from Seattle on June 5th and 6th, 1914, along with parties 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, on two steamers, the Admiral Sampson and the Northwestern . The steamers reached Ship Creek (now Anchorage) on June 15, 1914. Under time constraints, McPherson undertook the survey along the Government Winter Trail, customarily traversed during the winter months by dog sled, during the summer months when travel meant crossing large wetland areas and rivers swollen with rain.

On June 18th, Party No. 11 left Ship Creek and traveled to the town of Knik, which they left on June 20th to go to a point near the mouth of Willow Creek, the survey's official starting point, on the eastern side of the Susitna Valley. After crossing the Susitna River, the surveyors went west through the Susitna, Yentna, Skwentna, and Happy River Valleys until they reached the headwaters of the Happy River in the Alaska Range. McPherson's team traversed thirty miles investigating four passes (Simpson, Rainy, Teocalli (Goodman), and Houston) to determine the best railroad route through the Alaska Range. Subsequently, the group traveled up the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River as far as Farewell Mountain. They headed west across the Kuskokwim Basin, reaching McGrath, a settlement at the mouth of the Tacotna River, on September 14th. The reconnaissance party traveled up the Tacotna Valley to the Innoko Divide, and then through the valleys of the Tacotna, Moose and Bonanza Creeks to reach Iditarod ten days later. At the Iditarod on the Iditarod River, the crew boarded that last commercial steamer available for the year, disembarking on a four-day trip down the Innoko and Kuskowkim Rivers to St. Michael. On the 5th of October, McPherson and crew boarded the steamship Victoria , which reached Seattle on October 15th.

In 1916, McPherson published his reconnaissance and engineering summaries in the A.E.C. report to the U.S. House of Representatives, but the public never saw the complete body of his work from that summer. McPherson supplemented the expedition report with maps and two photograph albums. The route McPherson surveyed was never developed as a branch railroad, but it includes a large section of the National Historic Iditarod Trail.