"Alaska Highway Day" Celebrated October 25th, Honoring Alcan Construction
Black Soldiers Completed The Alaska Highway Under Segregated Conditions In 1942 ...On October 25th The 1,700 mile long Alaska Highway, whi...
Black Soldiers Completed The Alaska Highway Under Segregated Conditions In 1942
...On October 25th
A hard-working, enormously competent bunch, the black work crews built the Alcan in much the same way that earlier work crews built the Richardson Highway: with hand saws, shovels and axes. They had to build bridges and culverts. Which they did – at a record pace.
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The town of Delta Junction has long celebrated the construction of the Alcan, along with the farm town's status as the end of the road.
But so (erroneously) did Fairbanks, which for many years had a sign up in town by the waterfront, claiming that the Alcan ended in Fairbanks instead of Delta Junction.
This past summer, Delta people took down their old "End of the Alcan" sign, which was rotting, and rebuilt it, erecting it by the time fall came. It looks exactly like the original.
From Delta Junction, an extension of the highway came down the Tok Cutoff, and then to Anchorage, which at the time was not a big city at all.
The following is a story about how Copper Valley men worked to scout out the route to Cook Inlet which became the Glenn Highway. They started at Moose Creek, in what is now Glennallen.
Onward! How Copper Valley Men Scouted The Route To Anchorage - CLICK HERE
DELTA: THE END OF THE ALCAN
TOURISTS AT THE NEW DELTA JUNCTION END OF THE HIGHWAY SIGN: JULY, 2024
Photo, Copper River Country Journal |