THE LINK: JULY 2023 24 Photo Courtesy Alaska Railroad The Alaska Railroad is under state ownership and continues to support the growth of Alaska’s economy. Infrastructure built to support defense, resource development In its day, construction of the Alaska Railroad in the midst and aftermath of World War I was as defining an event as building of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s. Both were seen as national security infrastructure and key to opening access to natural resources — the Interior Alaska goldfields in the case of the railroad and newly-discovered North Slope oil fields in the case of the pipeline. There were key differences, of course. The pipeline was built and financed by private industry, North Slope oil producers Atlantic Richfield, BP, and Humble Oil (later ExxonMobil). The railroad was a government initiative, owned and operated by the federal government until it was purchased by the state of Alaska in 1985 for $22 million. President Woodrow Wilson had the vision to push this strategic infrastructure in 1914, as war clouds loomed in Europe, and to persuade a reluctant Congress to fund its estimated cost of $35 million. Construction began in 2015 with completion in 1923, one hundred years ago on July 15. President Warren G. Harding traveled to Alaska to drive a golden spike at Nenana, southwest of Fairbanks, to mark the completion. On his return trip Harding died from food poisoning in San Francisco. The number of construction workers, peaking at 4,500 in 2017, was not to rival the 10,000 that worked on the pipeline, but the project had a huge impact on Alaska at the time and was to transform the then-territory. Anchorage, founded as a construction 1923-2023: The Alaska Railroad at 100 years
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