Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1908-05-23
The Queerest Railroad.

The Nome-Arctic railroad is the
northernmost railroad on this CONT
nent From the shore of Boring Sea
at Nome it crosses the Towering tun-
dra and creeps and bumps its way in
to the heart of the snow-crowned Saw
/ tooth Mountain range.
1t was built for the transportation
of supplies to mining camps, scatter
ed along creeks and the Snake and
Nome rivers and in the mining district
of the Kougurok. Passengers are still
unconsidered trifles, who, at the rate
of 10 cents a mile, are permitted to
hang on if they can. Naturally it
runs only in summer.
The roofless Pullman car is thanked
with kitchen benches. 1t is solidly
packed with miners and track labor
ers, with pick and shovel and pan,
brown canvas bags or oilcloth packs
| There are also women and children,
going out to gather wild flowers. A
roofless freight car was piled with
merchandise. The one available seat
was key of nails.
Freight aboard, the flat-topped little
logging engine begins to sing like a
Dutch kettle, then slowly, cautiously
it teeters northward, sllirting Queen
Anne cottages and canvas, tin can
and tar paper shacks. Once across
Dry Creek bridge the town begins to
drop out of sight until the impercepti-
bly, rising tundra is on a level with
the sea.
Scarcely has the town vanished
than foothills, hung in purple shad-
ows, begin to appear. The tundra,
everywhere broken with natural la
goons and man-made bitches, is riot
GUS with flowers and waving fields of
cotton. Where cotton grows look out
for ice not far below, veteran miners
say.
Man of all work is the Nome-Arc-
tics conductor. In leather overalls
and putting huge cigar he stumbles
over freight and passengers in an eff
fort to gather fares, while everything
animate or inanimate scrambles to
keep from rolling off into the tundra
or creeks.
In building rail or wagon roads
Alaska's unsolyed problem is the tun-
dra. Composed of decayed vegeta-
ton, peat and reindeer MODS, it COW
ers, like an alluring carpet, ground
frozen nobody knows how deep Par
allel with the sea for leagues, it |
stretches back from Nome Beach four
or five miles into the foothills of the |
Sawtooth Mountains.
Wet or dry, the tundra is spongy.
When dry it yields to the tread with a
crisp crackle not unlike burnt paper
Or straw. Saturated with rain, a char
lcteristic of Northwestern Alaska
it is as dangerous to man or
beast as fog or a quicksand
When the Nome-Arctic railroad, the
second in Alaska and the first on the
peninsula, was built, July, 1902, by
he Wild Goose Mining and Trading
company for the transportation of
reight to its properties on Anvil
Creek, four and half miles from
Nome, wooden ties were laid over the .
undra, with little or no roadbed
The tracks when it rain
ID sank into the tundra until the
water often covered the floors of the
ars. In winter, when the Great
White Silence, as Jack Frost is called
n the northland, envelopes the Arctic,
he railroad ties are a trail to the
nusher. To miss footing, however, is
ften to sink hip deep in the tundra.
The fare to Anvil in those days was
l each way, while freight was at the
ate of four and one half cents
ound. The cost six years ago for a
orse team to Anvil Creek, four and
half miles, was $50. The Nome
rctic railroad in consequence cleared
l the first season of less than three
'orking months 100000.
The road had been extended to
tation Elk, IL miles from Nome,
hen the Wild Goose company sold it
| the summer of 1905 to the North
estern Development company-Se-
tile (Wash) Correspondent New
ork Herald