The Cordova daily times., 1922-08-31
ROAD BRINGS
 GREAT CHANGE
 TO INTERIOR

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Aug. 31.-| "All aboard, through train for the interior" Thus sings out the white coated porter, standing with step in hand at the rear of the Sour dough" limited. Glancing along the train it is found to be made up of express and baggage car, day coach, Pullman sleeper and an observation chair car.
 It seems incongruous that this equipment is ready to dash through the heart of Alaska and bring up on the banks of the Panama river, that mighty stream whose mere name conjures up visions of argonauts, dog teams, myriads of caribou and the old days when only strong men reached the Panama.
 On July 13 the through freight took place of the mixed train operat- ed heretofore and regular bi- weekly passenger and freight ser vice has been installed.
 Travellers recall trip over this route two years ago. It entailed a mixed train that began to crawl along as it entered the Broad Pass country, where operation extended al- most to the last rail laid. Then came the horse-drawn sleigh or dog team to the next roadhouse at Summit a bleak, desolute spot in winter, hem- med in by icy mountains and swept by wintry blasts. Overnight at the crude roadhouse and the trip was continued to Nenana, on the banks of the Panama, down a dangerous canyon where the dogsled clung to- the beetling cliffs by the teeth of the brake. Maybe it was 40 degrees below zero and only the hardy or those compelled to take the trip braved it.
 Today this same country is un- folded in scenic grandeur from the window of the Pullman or the rear platform of the observation parlor car, or mayhap while dining in the buffet car ahead. The bleak, icy mountains are bathed in the myster- ious light that arrays the entire spec trum and parades it before the vis- ion; little rivulets rush down from the mountains to join the noble Susitna carrying it's turbulent flood into Cook inlet.
 The system of crossing the Tan ana in winter on rails laid upon the ice soon will be supplanted by 7O0- foot single steel span bridge with ap- breaches well above the flood of the stream. The narrow gauge Tanana Valley "dinky" line will retreat be- fore the oncoming of the mogul engine and it's serpent-like string of modern equipment
 "Fairbanks," shouts the porter and Old Alaska has vanished, the great land of mystery along the Yukon be- comes but a banal echo of some thing that has been, but is no more.
 The change has been so sudden and so complete that the old-timers are finding it hard to readjust their lives to the new conditions. The rail- road has wiped away the dogteam as a means of transportation to the interior, the horse-drawn sleigh over the Richardson highway from Val deg is but a tourist adventure; auto mobiles take the place of the stage in summer and the railroad now serves a country, extending to Nome on the Northwest and the Arctic slope to the north, down the Panama from Fairbanks to the Yukon and up the Yukon to Dawson-a veritable adventure for the tourist who has absorbed the romance of the days of '98.
 The old-timer says the Dawson days will come again; where, he is unable to state; but the lure of the "shovel-in" ground beckons and as the railroad threaded north the pros pector broke new trails. What the future holds for the dreamer is as problematic as the first venture into the forbidding country that has so suddenly been transformed into a region wherein the most delicate may live and prosper.