East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1922-01-27
Ior metropolis of the northern posses.

ior metropolis of the northern possess
sion of the United States.
1t is hoped by those Immediately
concerned with the completion of this
immense engineering feat that it will
40 much TO dissipate popular associa-
ton of the name Alaska with icy
wastes and outlawry, opening up as it
, will n large agricultural and mining
section, as we'll as scenic beauties of
the great territory.
Appropriate ceremonies at Riley
| Creek Bridge. 90 miles south of Fair
banks, when the last rail is laid and
the last spike driven into the last tie,
will mark an epoch in American his
tory and in which Uncle Sans army
engineers have added further glamor
to their already great fame. seattle,
the port of Alaska" will celebrate
simultaneously with Alaskan cities this
material realization of pioneers
dreams-the fruitation of their fond
est hopes.
The building of this railroad was
attended by hardships seldom expert
pioneering projects. There were no
nearby towns or even settlements on
which to call for supplies. Model
towns were built, construction houses
and machine shops erected, and homes
for the workers grew where not even
an Indians igloo had been seen.
Rivers which were either raging tor
rents. flushed with huge cakes of ice
or frozen into glaciers, were spanned
with steel; mountains, with their pre-
cpitous sides, rocky lodges and deep
canyons were crossed; swamps were
made to accommodate modern rail-
road bed and open plains, whose sill
ences were only broken by the howl of
the wind and wolf or the ''mush" of
the sled over its puny trails, came to
know the whistle of the construction
train as it pushed forward over mod
ern path of civilization
Preliminary surveys were made in
1914 and actual construction began in
1915, when gangs started at each ter
minal, working toward each other.
The first ia miles completed between
Seward and anchorage has been in op-
Grafton for some Is months and has
been a source OF nearly $1,000, 900 rev.
enue to the road.
Two small lines already in Alaska
were bought by the government--the
Alaska Northern, from Seward to
Cooks Inlet, at cost of $1,157,S39
and the Nenana Valley, operating be-
tween Fairbanks and Chatanika,
which cost 100000.
The main line of the Alaskan rail-
road, from Seward to Fairbanks, is
I467 miles long-the completed road
! with all it's branches comprises 539
miles and cost .$56,000,000. 1t was
built by United States government
army engineers.
A typical construction problem was
the spanning of the Susitna river,
which like many others of the pro-
gineering. The bridge span is of steel,
504 feet in length and together with
its two approaches is f,322 feet long,
the largest of its kind on the railroad.
Ice reaches enormous heights In the
Susitna during the spring break up,
as was shown by the scared and brok-
en- trees along its banks and the scar
red rocks of its canyons; so that sub
staining piers in midstream were out
of the question---timbers would be
crushed like straws and concrete fare
little better under the tremendous
pressure of the ice pack. A long span
was decided upon and its building is q
story in itself.
Supplies had to be freighted by sleds
on the ice until the river broke and
the jams had crushed their way down