The Alaska daily empire., 1920-12-29
NEW EQUIPMENT USED ON ROADS
 BY COMMISSION
Up-to-Date Road Building Machinery Will Be Utilized
 By A. R. (. Next Year.

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 With practically all of its neces sary equipment provided for and much of it on the ground and sup plies being assembled. the Alaska Road Commission, with the exception of organization personnel and funds is in readiness to begin it's next sea sons work, according to Maj. J. C Gotwals, Engineer Officer of the Commission. we have everything well in hand and by July 1, 1921. We will be building roads so fast that nc one can keep track of them or we will be without funds" he added.
 Up To Date Equipment
 The road building force of the Com. mission next season will be better equipped than any ever put in the i field by the organization. The old days of horse and man power viii be largely superseded by gas and steam power. Big Holt caterpillar tractors. dump trucks and trailers working from steam and gas shovals, will take the place of wheel bar rows, horse-drawn wagons and labor CTS equipped with shovels.
 Six new Holt 45 tractors have been secured from the War Department by Col. James G. Steese, now in Wash ington, and will be, shipped North Il once. These will be used along the Alaska Railroad and in the Inter- for districts as road building ma chimes. It is also planned to pur- chase a light caterpillar in the near future which will be shipped into the Interior over the Broad Pass and into the Kantishna district for use there on road work.
 With the equipment purchased and on it's way North, the Commission has for it's next seasons work, nine caterpillars, nine farm tractors, D dump trucks, A light Ford and Dodge delivery trucks, one steam shovel, for use on the Fairbanks end of the Richardson Highway, two gas shovels in Southwestern Alaska. many trail CTS, wagons, scrapers, slips, graders, blows and other light equipment in abundance. We have everything necessary for prosecuting the enlarg- ed program planned for next year" stated Maj. Gotwals,
 Personnel Being Secured
 While we do not anticipate any thing this year as acute as the labor shortage encountered last season, we are already beginning to look after the personnel of our organization, said Maj Gotwals. During his recent visit to the States he looked up a number of old-time foremen of the Commission and three of them will return North in the Spring and take up their old jobs. They are ex- perenced road men and familiar with Alaskan conditions, having lived in the Territory for years.
 Supplies, he said. have been ar ranged for and will be on hand with the opening of the season. If the ap- propriation requested is approved byl Congress, next year will prove the greatest in the history of Alaskan road construction.
 Visit All Trails
 "Col. Steese desires that some member of the Commission visit every mile of road and trail of the Commission in Alaska during the coming year." said Maj. Gotwals. "Following this inspection, it is plan ned to either put them in the best possible shape or abandon any which it is considered have no value"
 The first step in this inspection will be taken in few days. Maj Gotwals will leave on the steamer Northwestern for Seward and start on a trip over the winter trails which it is estimated, will cover 1,200 miles. taking in the Panama River and Yukon River winter mail routes between Fairbanks and Ruby, across into the Iditarod and McGrath dis trcts, swinging back through Kusko- kwim, over Rainy Pass back into Cache Creek and returning to Sew ard. Side trips will probably be taken from the Alaska railroad from point near the Nenana River to get an idea of snow conditions along proposed routes from the railroad into the Kantishna district. At Fair banks he will confer with Superin- terdent Dan Jones and Engineer Hawley Sterling over proposed prof ects. The latter is to make a re- connaisance of the Chatanika-Beaver Creek trail where improvements are wanted and will probably be made. Plans for the work on the Chatanika- Miller House extension of the Circle Miller House road, designed to open up a rich mineral district on both sides of the Alaska Range, will also be settled.
 No definite action on the through route into the Kuskokwim has yet been determined Mai. Gotwals de sires to go over all those suggested before coming to final decision The length of his absence from Jul mean is indeterminate