iVinrW. PAF)B iVJJN£fl
BE
DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF MOOSE PASS AND KENAI PENINSULA
Vol. 1
Moose Paee. Alaaka - March 28> 1939
No. 13
ED. NOTE* ThiB is our 13th issue!
That must be the reason we’ve
been jinxed for four weeks and
not able to get out a paper. We've
wasted a lot of breath dis-cussing
the dear old The Alaska Railroad
because our supplies were riding
up and down between Seward and
Fairbanks, apparently unable to
dismount at Moose Pass. But now
ws know that it waB just old JINX
13 on the job. _j
DELEGATE DIMOND TESTIFIES AGAINST
TRANSFER OF THE RAILROAD TERMINUS
Testifying before the subcommittee of
the House Committee on Appropriations
which has charge of the Interior Depart
ment appropriation bill, Alaska's Delegate
Dimond, on January 24 expressed his oppo
sition to any proposal for changing the
ocean terminus of The Alaska Railroad from
Seward to Portage Bay.
brieiiy analyzing xne suDjeci; irom me
engineering point of view, first investi
gated 20 years ago, then turning to the
natural hazards of construction, mainten
ance, and operation of the railroad termin'
al suggested for Portage Bay, the Delegate
emphasized the government investment, as
well as the value of privately owned prop
erty, that would be depreciated to almost
nothing if the railroad should abandon its
operation in and out of Seward; he describ'
ed anjt suggestion to make the transfer as
"outright folly," and said it is "highly
inadvisable even to seriously entertain
the thought."
The possibility of using Portage Bay
for the coast terminal of the railroad was
developed before the government construct
ed the road, "but after the most compre
hensive consideration, the officials at
that time - President Wilson and Secretary
Lane - declined to recommend the route and
instead placed the terminus at Seward," Mr
Dimond told the committee. Using esti
mates in tKe statement made by Col. 0. F.
Ohlson, General Manager of The Alaska
Railroad, who had testified earlier in the
day, the Delegate saidt "Nobody knows what
the expense will be. It is suggested thai
the tunnels might be built and all of this
14 miles of road constructed at an expense
not to exceed $5,000,000. And that, as
Colonel Ohlson said, was based entirely on
the estimates mad* at the time the various
routes into the interior of Alaska were
examined and the engineers made their re
port." Mr. Dimond then reminded the
c&nmittee that "those same engineers stud
ied the situation and estimated that The
Alaska Railroad could be built for 35 mil
lion dollars." He continued, "It has
(Continued on page 3)
Howard Estelle, agent at Palmer for
the University of Alaska Agricultural ex
tension service, spent last Thursday in
Moose Pass in connection with his duties.
He went to Seldovia and Homer from here
and will stop in Moose Pass again in the
next three weeks while en route to Hope.
Miss Ora Smith of El Paso, Tex.,sis
ter of Harry L. Smith and well known in
Moose Pass, was one of those who were in
jured when a Union Pacific wreck occurred
at Bosler, Wyo., on February 25. With
her brother, Floyd, and other friends she
was on her way to attend the Golden Gate
exposition at San Francisco.
Mr, Smith received word that she was
recovering from her injuries.
Finding the bodies of Lon Cope, pilot,
and five passengers - Earl Clifford, Jack
Lennon, George Chamberlain, Ernest Eck
and James Chappelle frozen in the wreck
ed Fairchild pontoon plane near Doty Cove
15 miles northeast of Juneau, of course
ended the hope that they had survived a
crash.
Articles of incorporation and by-laws
. were approved and 24 directors were elec
ted at the annual meeting of the Alaska
Mining association which was held in
Fairbanks March 20. Directors named
for the Anchorage, Willow Creek,Moose
Pass district were W.E.Dunkle, Robert
. Hatcher, Elwyn Swetmann and W.W.Stoll,
A bill to extend the provisions of
the Federal Highway Act to the Territory
of Alaska has been introduced in Congress
by Delegate Anthony J. Dimond. The meas
ure would allow Alaska to share in ap
propriations made by Congress for road
purposes, just as the States and the Ter
ritory of Hawaii now share.
Alaska's Territorial Legislature pas
sed an $800,000 bill for roads, the largest
in the history of Alaska and double that
of the last two years.
Discussing the highway proposed to
connect Alaska with the United States,
; Delegate Dimond told a congressional com
mittee that the construction of the high
way would be "the greatest single thing th
that could be done for the development of
the Territory." Airfields and roads
were named by the Delegate as the two
most important needs of Alaska, and among
the road needs of the Territory he placed
particular emphasis on a road to .connect
the Richardson Highway with the Matanuska
Valley, and a road to'open up Kenai Pen
insula from Cooper's Landing to Homer by
way of Kenai.