In July I made a short trip to Chitina staying a couple nights at the Liberty Falls campground and spending the days around town and hiking south of Obrien Creek where my wife Sharon found a 1917 date nail! I continue to work on the idea of developing the Chitina Emporium, but at a modest, hobby, pace of work.
I put my name/phone number up and URL on the building asking if anyone was interested in the building to contact me. I’ve gotten one call from a guy who made an offer that was not accepted. I’d be thrilled to see someone take it on and am willing to work with and help most anyone, but I will also continue my own efforts to develop a plan and financing if no one else is making better progress. (Credit to Thomas Beswanger of Big Lake for originally spurring me to investigate this opportunity. He’s a great wealth of knowledge of the railroad history and talented model builder.)
Patrick Duran from the 557 project recently gave me six boxes of research John Killoran did on draft book he was writing on the CRNWRR. He died in 2000 so his research misses the growth of the park and tourism impacts. So far I not found much that adds to the story, but perhaps it might be a good introduction the story of the railroad and mine.. sort of a Copper Spike + Cold Mountain Path for a casual visitor/tourist, without the details or drama.
John was part of the administration that transferred the AK Railroad to the State of Alaska and has a strong rail road background. The most interesting, though minor part in the draft is his development of the plans for the railroad to have gone to Fairbanks and the observation that the RR was build to “mainline” construction standards from Cordova to Chitina, and to “branch line” standards from Chitina to the mine. There might be more to develop in the story of the plans for the railroad perhaps then expanding on the later plans for the Copper River Highway and its many routes and a hiking trail.
I spend a week in Cordova earlier this month to do a bit of research and spend time with the curator/director of the historical society there to learn about some of their resources. That was my first time to get to drive out to the current end of the road. Weather didn’t cooperate with my plans to get a boat or plane ride out to the bridge and fly some of the route of the railroad for pictures. But I did find in John’s material some pictures of his own aerial survey that have been interesting.
Ky
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