Richardson Highway
highway in Alaska
The Richardson Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, running 368 miles (562 km) and connecting Valdez to Fairbanks. It is marked as Alaska Route 4 from Valdez to Delta Junction and as Alaska Route 2 from there to Fairbanks. It also connects segments of Alaska Route 1 between the Glenn Highway and the Tok Cut-Off. The Richardson Highway was the first major road built in Alaska.
History
Early Years and Exploration
Indigenous trade routes existed in the region going from Prince William Sound to the north of the Alaska Range into the Alaskan Interior starting at least 5000 years ago. The majority of the trade was facilitated by the Ahtna, but also included the Eyak and Sugpiaq to the south, and the Tanana Athabaskans to the north. The route of the Richardson Highway primarily follows part of this old trade network. Prospectors heard rumors of this ancient trade route and it encouraged them to explore the Interior to try to find a route to the gold fields in the Klondike area.
In 1885, Lieutenant Henry Allen's party crossed the eastern Alaska Range from the mouth of the Copper River to the Tanana River via Suslota Pass, the first non-natives to do so. In his report, he noted that it would be possible to build a road between Prince William Sound to the Yukon River.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Richardson Highway” is highway in Alaska. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Richardson, Highway and highway, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richardson Highway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.