Troopers Say They're Looking For Whoever Broke Into Paxson Lodge
Paxson Lodge in September, 2011, as shown on the current Google Maps. ...Good Luck On That AUGUST 26, 2024 The Alaska State Troopers ar...
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| Paxson Lodge in September, 2011, as shown on the current Google Maps. |
...Good Luck On That
Recently, said the Troopers, a complainant filed a report about a burglary and said that there were broken windows, "items thrown about" and graffiti at the abandoned 2-story structure. The lodge, with its peeling paint and garish turquoise trim, has collapsed ever-further into the tundra since it was abruptly abandoned in 2013. It’s going to be hard to find a suspect.
To local people, it is no surprise that the lodge has been wrecked. Over the years, the Lodge's doors have been bashed in, its yard filled with trash, its walls frayed and falling apart. Untended and alone, the Copper Valley's beloved Paxson Lodge has been ransacked for over a decade.
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| Paxson Lodge, June 2023. (Photo by Copper River Country Journal) |
The Troopers say they are investigating, and ask anybody who knows anything about "criminal mischief" or "burglary" at Paxson Lodge to call them at their Delta Junction Trooper Post phone number:
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| Side door (left) went to the Paxson extension of the Gakona Post Office at one time. (Photo, June 2023, Copper River Country Journal) |
3,000 PEOPLE CAME TO THE GRAND OPENING IN 1958
Paxson Lodge – at least the "new" Paxson Lodge – wasn't always like this. At one time, it was a showcase. The lodge dates back to 1958 -- although there are still the ruins of a little "old" log lodge nearby in the bushes.
There was a grand opening for the new Paxson Lodge 66 years ago. It was a gala event. As if it was the brand new opening of a Princess Hotel out on the highways. The invitation went out in the city newspapers. And everybody came.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WHOLE BUNCH OF YEARS MAKES!
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| Paxson Lodge in the 1950s (Donald Arthur Post, photographer, Donald Arthur Post slides, Archives & Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage) |
People have always loved the Denali Highway, so this was exciting, especially if you lived in Fairbanks.
News reports from the time said 3,000 people drove to Paxson to celebrate its opening.
Paxson Lodge was a very big deal. When the current structure was built, its owners bragged that it was 100% up-to-date, and even fireproof: made of cedar, cinderblock and glass. Apparently it was a gleaming piece of modernity; proof that even the wilds of Alaska could be fancy and sleek.
They wanted it fireproof, because lodges burn down – and many have in the Copper Valley since 1958: Copper Center Lodge, Sourdough Roadhouse, Chistochina Lodge, Gakona Junction, Mendeltna Lodge, Midway, The Point Lodge...
So it was very important back in 1958 that Paxson Lodge had some assurance against going up in flames.
It never has burned down. But its current state would shock the thousands of people who partied away at the newly built lodge when it first opened its doors.
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| "Old" Paxson Lodge log outbuilding. (Photo, Country Journal, June 2023) |
EVERYONE LOVED THE LODGE — AND THE BROWNS
Actually, though, Paxson's glory days weren't the 1950s. The days many remember were the 1980s, when the lodge was run by Wanda and Stan Brown and their family. Local people loved the Browns and Wanda loved them back. She was so friendly, so motherly, so much of the roadhouse tradition.
The lodge, by then, had lost a lot of its shine. It had turned functional and noisy, with tables, and chairs rattling across the floor, and large discolored windows that looked out onto the start of the Denali Highway. There was a pay phone mounted on the outside of the building.
But nobody cared that it didn't look like it was a movie lodge from a film – like the original owners had wanted.
It was Paxson Lodge! A wonderful place. August and September just didn't feel right if you didn't spend an hour or two eating a meal at Paxson Lodge.
Everybody in the Copper Valley who was headed up to the Denali Highway to pick berries or go hunting in the fall stopped at the lodge.
You'd go in, and chat with friends who had also come by, on their adventures, and who you hadn't seen for months. You'd eat burgers and fries. And, in the winter, the lodge was open, too, offering a refuge to folks headed back and forth on that long, long run between Gakona Junction and Delta.
After it was closed by its new owners the lodge rapidly fell apart. Driving by the decaying building invariably brought a sense of loss to those who had known it in its better days, when snowmachine companies stayed there, testing out their new machines — and the lodge offered comfort and comraderie.
