Primary Name: Copper River and Northwestern Railway Survey Expedition

Filed as: Copper River and Northwestern Railway Survey Expedition, 1905

Also known as: Copper River Route Survey

Occupation / Association: Railroad survey expedition; Copper River and Northwestern Railway development

Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Valdez, Alaska; Copper River Valley, Alaska; Cordova, Alaska; Haines, Alaska; Seattle, Washington

Keywords: Copper River and Northwestern Railway survey 1905, Jack Dalton railroad survey Alaska, Samuel Murchison railroad engineer Alaska, J R McPherson surveyor Alaska, Michael Heney railroad builder Alaska, Stephen Birch Alaska Syndicate, Copper River railroad history

Biography

In September 1905, Jack Dalton, Sam Murchison, and surveyor J. R. McPherson conducted a new evaluation of the proposed Copper River railroad route in Alaska and determined that the route was feasible.

The party returned to Valdez in late October 1905 and transmitted their conclusions to railroad builder Michael Heney by coded telegram. Heney later met Dalton and Murchison in Juneau and filed a right-of-way application with the United States General Land Office.

Because the Copper River route faced no competing applications, the right-of-way was approved. Heney and Murchison then traveled to Seattle to obtain equipment and supplies for the railroad project.

Meanwhile, Dalton, McPherson, several chainmen, and a group of Dalton’s Chilkat Native packers from Haines began detailed surveying work along the route. The group secretly purchased an abandoned cannery in Cordova to serve as the southern terminus of the future railway.

Construction of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway began during the winter of 1905–1906. Financial difficulties soon revealed that Close Brothers could not support the project. At the same time, the competing Katalla route, initially supported by Stephen Birch and the Alaska Syndicate, proved impractical.

The Alaska Syndicate eventually purchased Heney’s interests and continued construction of the railway. The line was completed to the rich copper mines of the interior in 1911, becoming one of the most significant industrial transportation projects in Alaska’s early twentieth-century development.

Sources

Alaska Mining Hall of Fame.