THE ALASKAN ENGINEERING COMMISSION: ITS HISTORY, ACTIVITY, AND ORGANIZATION CHAPTER I HISTORY The Alaskan Engineering Commission, an agency under the executive direction of the Secretary of the Interior, has been entrusted with the work of survey, location, construction, and operation of the government railroad in the territory of Alaska. It also has the direction of all the collateral and supplementary activities necessarily involved in an operation of such magnitude. The Railroad Situation in Alaska Prior to the Creation of the Commission. The creation of the Alaskan Engineering Commission was the culmination of several years' discussion and agitation on the problem of the development of Alaskan resources through an adequate railroad system. In view of the almost limitless mineral wealth of this territory, its valuable fisheries and fur trade, and the uncharted possibilities in its arable and grazing lands and in lumbering, the failure of private initiative and capital to supply sufficient railroad facilities for exploitation of this region and the ultimate assumption of responsibility by the federal government requires exposition. The explanation lies in the peculiar railroad history of Alaska, which is therefore briefly outlined in the next few sections. Such a history naturally falls into three periods. The first period, extending in point of time from the beginning of civil government in 1885 to the act of May 14, 1898, which first made provision for rights of way for railroads, was characterized by a transition from dependence upon water transportation to recognition of the necessity for railroads as an aid in the development of the territory. The second period, beginning with the enactment of the act of 1898, was the period of active construction and promotion of railroads through private initiative and capital. The third period, beginning with the failure of several of the roads in 1908, was characterized by cumulative evidence that under the established government policy of taxation of the pioneer railroads and of withholding coal lands from private exploitation, private capital would not be able to provide the railroad facilities required for the development of Alaska. In this period a growing demand for federal intervention culminated in the creation of the Alaskan Engineering Commission. Each of the above periods will be discussed briefly in the pages which follow. Period Prior to Passage of the Act of 1898. In the first few years following the creation of a civil government for Alaska there is little evidence of a realization of the need of railroads either for general purposes of commerce or as an aid to the rapid development of the territory. Consideration of a railroad project for Alaska is indicated in the Congressional Record of March 17, 1886,1 when a bill 2 was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations "to facilitate the settlement and develop the resources of the Territory of Alaska, and open an overland and commercial route between the United States, Asiatic Russia and Japan." This bill was referred by the committee to the Department of the Interior for a report on the feasibility of the project. A report thereon was submitted by the Director of the Geological Survey under date of May 21, 1886, in which it was stated that "the information on record bearing on the question does not indicate any greater obstacles to the construction of such a line than 1 Vol. 27, p. 2427, 49 cong. 2 sess., (1886), 2 S. Bill 1907. those already overcome in transcontinental railroad building and this being true the construction of the proposed line must be pronounced feasible. . . . The Director does not feel called upon to express any opinion as to the wisdom of constructing the railroad under consideration." 3 Nothing further appears in the records of Congress concerning this bill, and it may be inferred that it was permitted to die in committee. But though the introduction of this bill indicates realization in some quarters, even at this early date of the need of a railroad for Alaska, one so qualified to speak of the needs of the district as its Governor wrote in 1884 that "all travel and transportation in Alaska is and for years must continue to be by water." 4 This view was natural in contemplation of the physical features of Alaska whose southerly seaboard, presenting a front of over 2400 miles to the Pacific, abounds in good natural harbors, and all these, except the head of Cook Inlet, are ice free throughout the year. A series of high ranges skirting the Pacific, indeed, forms a serious barrier to inland travel, but these mountains are broken by several transverse valleys and passes, giving access to the interior. Beyond this mountain system is an area of lesser relief, a rolling upland with many broad valleys, offering no physical obstacles to lines of communication. This inland province is drained to the Bering Sea by the Great Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers which with their tributaries afford some 5000 miles of water navigable to river steamers.5 It can be readily understood that with nature thus favoring water transportation, there could be but slow development of railroad transportation, particularly when the small population is considered. The total population in 1890 was but 31,795, of which only 4303 were whites, and this small number was scattered over an area one-fifth of the total area of the United States. Consequently, it is not surprising that "a steamship 3 49 cong. 2 sess., S. Misc. doc. 22, p. 2. 4 Governor of Alaska, Annual report, 1884, p. 7. 5 Brooks, "The development of Alaska by government railroads," Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXVIII, 586-96. is to Alaska what the railroad train is to the people of the United States." Even when the difficulties involved in the administration of so large an area brought the problem of more adequate transportation to the attention of the Governor, his perplexities in seeking to curb smuggling and "boot-legging" led only to a modest request, as late as in 1889, for a light draught vessel for the use of the civil government." Even three years later it was reported that not only had no railroads been built but that none were even contemplated seriously." The first real impetus to railroad construction came in the period following the discovery of gold in the Klondike in 1886. "The horde of gold seekers that swarmed through the passes of the coast range in 1897 and 1898 transported their supplies by sleds and on their backs. It is estimated that by this primitive means upward of 30,000 tons of freight were carried inland at a cost, allowing fair wages for the labor, of probably $15,000,000 to $16,000,000. About an equal amount of freight was sent to the interior by steamers up the Yukon." 9 In consequence of this gold rush, the census of 1900 reported a population of 63,592, of which 30,507 were whites. The population of Alaska was thus practically doubled in the decade of 1890-1900, while the white population in this decade increased seven fold. Another factor was the growth of knowledge of Alaska's resources and industrial possibilities, mainly as a result of governmental investigations, but also as an indirect result of the general public interest attending the discovery of gold in the Klondike. It was rapidly becoming clear at this time that aside from the long recognized wealth in the fur and mineral trade, there were remarkable potentialities in agriculture, herding, lumbering, etc. As a consequence of these influences, requests were made of • Governor of Alaska, Annual report, 1885, p. 14. Ibid., 1889, p. 26. # Ibid., 1891, p. 34. 9 Brooks, supra. |