Life In Kenny Lake In 1947. By Gwynne May Jones

THE EARLY DAYS  

What Was It Like Living In Kenny Lake? 

An original tale given to the Copper River Country Journal in 2004 by Corrie Lynne Player. Written by her mother, Gwynne May Jones, who lived in Kenny Lake in 1947.  

ORIGINAL STORY ABOUT COPPER VALLEY LIFE IN 1947 

We passed patches of spruce, birch and cottonwood, then meadows filled with willows and tall grass or dotted by ponds and marches. Kenny Lake was a good sized lake, and came close to the road near the west end. 

Along the Richardson and the Chitina Cutoff were tripods where wires for the telephone system were strung. These lined the road all the way down to Valdez, and up to Fairbanks. I believe they were put up by the Corps of Engineers about 1917. The central operator was in Glennallen. It was like a small town hookup over a 200 mile radius. We hooked up our own phone when we returned from Copper Center the following spring. Our "number" was 2 shorts and 2 longs. Charles still has that original box phone, with its handle for dialing. 

Right at the water's edge was a log barn that had partly fallen in. Across the road to the north was a large cleared field, in the center of which was a pit filled with burned material. The Kenny Lake Roadhouse had burned down a few years before. In the early days there were roadhouses with barns where horses were kept, ten miles or so apart. The mailman drove a wagon with a wooden body, and changed horses at the roadhouses. 

The next one to Kenny Lake had been at Lower Tonsina. Hay was raised at each location. When we came back a couple of years later, with stock and equipment, we cut the hay at Lower Tonsina.