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Valdez is a city in the Chugach Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to the 2020 US Census, the population of the city is 3,985, up from 3,976 in 2010. It is the third most populated city in Alaska's Unorganized Borough.
The White Pass and Yukon Route is a Canadian and U.S. Class III 3 ft narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route.
The District of Alaska was the federal government’s designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884, to August 24, 1912, when it became Alaska Territory. Previously (1867–1884) it had been known as the Department of Alaska, a military designation.
The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad that operates freight and passenger trains in the state of Alaska. The railroad's mainline is over 470 miles (760 km) long and runs between Seward on the southern coast and Fairbanks, near the center of the state and the Arctic Circle, passing through Anchorage and Denali National Park where 17% of visitors arrive by train. The railroad has about 656 miles (1,056 km) of track, including sidings, rail yards and branch lines, including the branch to Whittier, where the railroad interchanges freight railcars with the contiguous United States via rail barges that sail between the Port of Whittier and Harbor Island in Seattle.
The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.
The Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CR&NW) consisted of two rail lines, the Copper River line and the Northwestern line. Michael James Heney had secured the right-of-way up the Copper River in 1904. He started building the railway from Cordova, Alaska in 1906. The town of Cordova, Alaska, was actually named by Heney on March 13, 1906, based on the original name given by Salvador Fidalgo. Both these railroads were abandoned and little remains of them. Only a 0-4-0 locomotive, "Ole", located near Goose City on a siding of the Alaska Anthracite Railroad Company is the only equipment left. Many of the holdings of the CR&NW railroad including Ole were acquired for this railroad by Mr. Clark Davis and his partners in 1908 after a major storm destroyed the Katalla area facilities in 1907. The town of Cordova would like to move Ole to a memorial site in Cordova to celebrate its role in these railroads. Ole was declared eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
Canyon City is a Klondike Gold Rush ghost town and a Yukon Government Heritage Site. It is located about 7 km from downtown Whitehorse, Yukon at the upstream end of Miles Canyon on the Yukon River. Summer tours are encouraged.
Michael James "Moose" Heney was a railroad contractor, best known for his work on the first two railroads built in Alaska, the White Pass and Yukon Route and the Copper River and Northwestern Railway. The son of Irish immigrants, Heney rose to the top of his profession before his death. His life inspired several books and at least one movie.
The history of Yukon covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians through the Beringia land bridge approximately 20,000 years ago. In the 18th century, Russian explorers began to trade with the First Nations people along the Alaskan coast, and later established trade networks extending into Yukon. By the 19th century, traders from the Hudson's Bay Company were also active in the region. The region was administered as a part of the North-Western Territory until 1870, when the United Kingdom transferred the territory to Canada and it became the North-West Territories.
The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. While it originally set out to ship passengers and fishing products, the Alaska Steamship Company began shipping mining equipment, dog sleds, and cattle at the outbreak of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. The company was purchased by the Alaska Syndicate and merged with the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1909, but retained its name, and the fleet was expanded to 18 ships. During World War II, the government took over the company's ships. When the war ended, the company struggled to compete with the new Alaska Highway for passengers and freight. It discontinued passenger service altogether in 1954 and shut down operations in 1971.
Steamboats on the Yukon River played a role in the development of Alaska and Yukon. Access to the interior of Alaska and Yukon was hindered by large mountains and distance, but the wide Yukon River provided a feasible route. The first steamers on the lower Yukon River were work boats for the Collins Overland Telegraph in 1866 or 1867, with a small steamer called Wilder. The mouth of the Yukon River is far to the west at St. Michael and a journey from Seattle or San Francisco covered some 4,000 miles (6,400 km).
Elbridge Truman Barnette was a Yukon riverboat captain, banker, and swindler, who founded the city of Fairbanks, Alaska, and later served as its first mayor.
Snettisham is a locale and former populated place in the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska, United States. Based on the mainland coast of Stephens Passage, it is 31 miles (50 km) southeast of the city of Juneau. The area was named by George Vancouver in 1794; the bay on which Snettisham was located was named for the village of Snettisham in Norfolk, England. It was established as a gold- and silver-mining camp around 1895, its operations being linked to those in the immediate Juneau area, and it remained a small harbor village until 1926. The United States Department of the Treasury designated Snettisham as one of several of Alaska's "special" landing places for vessels carrying "coal, salt, railroad iron, and other like items in bulk". The designation was meant to encourage the construction of facilities to accommodate these shipments, thus stimulating creation and growth of local businesses.
The MacBride Copperbelt Mining Museum formally the Copperbelt Railway & Mining Museum (CR&MM) is run by the Miles Canyon Historic Railway Society (MCHRS), which consists of a board of six members. The objectives of the society are to: a) To preserve, promote and to protect the railway heritage of the Yukon; b) To develop and operate the Waterfront Trolley; c) To develop and operate the Copperbelt Railway & Mining Museum; and d) To promote and enhance tourism development in the city of Whitehorse and the Yukon.
Council City and Solomon River Railroad is an abandoned railroad in the U.S. state of Alaska. Its name refers to Solomon River and the city of Council in the Nome Census Area. The railway operated from 1903 to 1907. The remains of the railroad at Mile 31 of the Nome-Council Highway, comprising three locomotives, two flat cars and a boiler, were listed as an historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
Alexander W. Swanitz was an American civil engineer who participated in the construction of a number of railroads in various parts of the country.
Keystone Canyon is a gorge near Valdez in the U.S. state of Alaska. Situated at an elevation of 307 feet (94 m), its walls are almost perpendicular. It measures 3 miles (4.8 km) in length, connecting the upper and lower valleys of Lowe River.
In an effort to thwart statehood and Alaskan home rule from Washington D.C., the "Alaska Syndicate," was formed in 1906 by J. P. Morgan and Simon Guggenheim. The Syndicate purchased the Kennicott-Bonanza copper mine and had majority control of the Alaskan steamship and rail transportation. The syndicate also was in charge of a large part of the salmon industry.
References
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain : Investor Publishing Company's "United States Investor" (1906)
- 1 2 United States Investor (Public domain ed.). Investor Publishing Company. 1906. pp. 1763–.
- ↑ Lundberg, Murray. "Rails to Riches Historic Railways of Alaska & the Yukon Territory". railsnorth.com. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
