Valdez daily prospector., 1916-03-24
AUTOMOBILE ROAD 10 THE INTERIOR
ASKS LARGE APPROPRIATION
Acting Secretary of War Urges Con-
 gross to Place Half Million Dollars
 to the Credit of Commission For

From Valdez to Fairbanks and then to Chitina by a good automobile road, running through some of the most magnificent scenery in Alaska, will be made possible next summer if the recommendations made to Con- gress by Maj-General Hugh L. Scott, acting secretary of war, are adopted. General Scott, according to a dispatch from the Seattle Times Washington correspondent, in a letter submitted to Congress, requested that an appro- priation of an additional $500.000 be
 made for the purpose of building
 roads and trails in Alaska. This
 will make the total appropriation for this purpose s650,000.
 Automobiles have been able to
 travel over this road the past two years, but with considerable difficult ty, and a number of tourists who took their machines to Alaska with a view to making the trip to the in terior were compelled to abandon the purpose because of the almost i'm passible condition of the road. Col Wilds P. Richardson, chair
 man of the Alaska Road Commits sion, has always favored the plan of
 making this into a good road for au- tomobiles, because of the advantages lit would have for military purposes, but inability to get the necessary ap propriations from Congress has de ferred the completion of the work. The Alaska Road Commission two years ago worked plan by which connections would have been made from Skagway with a road to be built by the Canadian government from the border down the Yukon to Eagle City, the lower boundary line. Here the road was to have been connected by the road from Fairbanks to Val dez. The Canadian government started the construction of it's end of the line. but the work was aban- doned soon after war was declared by
 Great Britain.
 If the appropriation requested by General Scott is passed by Congress, the road from Valdez to Fairbanks
 and thence to Chitina will be placed in traversable condition next sum mer, and doubtless number of tour
 ists will drive over it. In any ev-
 ent it will be used for hauling sup
 plies and for carrying mail to the
 interior.
 This trip will give tourists chance to take an automobile tour through the coast range of mountains and at the same time give them an oppor- tunity to see the mammoth glaciers on Copper river at close range. In his letter accompanying the rec ommendation to Congress General
 Scott said:
 With this amount it is proposed to carry toward completion the con- struction of the Valdez z-Chitina-Fair-
 banks military road. road of great
 postal and military value, now under
 construction for several years, with
 constantly increasing traffic, which
 makes maintenance expensive. The ! weaker sections will be strengthened and gravel surfacing carried through
 out.
 Ut is also proposed to carry out
 construction for the Ruby-Long creek
 road, upon which s43,OOO has d.
 ready been spent This route and tho route traverse twn
 of the three great trunk lines from
 the Gulf of Alaska to the interior,
 the other being the proposed federal railroad route The sooner these
 two roads are made passable. and
 usable for traffic throughout their en-
 tire distance the better for the pub
 lie it will be. It is stated that the divi-
 sion of the $50O,00O from the regu-
 lar estimates was due to the fact
 that 1t was not practicable for the president of the Alaska Road Com
 mission to bring the full facts to the
 attention of the department in time. 
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