Wow, that's a great sight huh! Of all the amazing places in Alaska, Kennecott remains one of my favorite. Located in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, this abandoned mining camp is a historical treasure. As the story goes, the camp was started around 1900 when two prospectors located a nice green patch where they could graze their horses. Of course this green patch turned out to be copper ore. Seizing this opportunity, a group of men promptly created the Chitina Mining and Exploration Company.
The mine was extremely profitable, some saying it was the richest copper mine in the world. It operated for about 25 years and extracted about $210 million worth of copper.
How they made this happen is unbelievable. Today, there is a road that leads (almost) to the town. I say almost, because you still have to get out and park your car about 5 miles from the mine. And I haven't even told you about the road coming in! The drive to Kennecott is one of the bumpiest, flat-tire producing, slowest roads I've been on. But this is a good thing, keeps all those dang tourists away! Of course, tourists still come, but at very manageable numbers. My point being, this is a very remote, very difficult place to get to. I can not even fathom how these men got all of this equipment here in 1900. This should make my point:
That's some insanely hard work to produce some copper. I hope you're all appreciating those pipes and electrical cables most of us take for granted!
In the early 1930's, the mine was pretty much abandoned after most of the high grade ore was depleted. They had some watchmen for a few years but eventually they left too. It's a harsh winter out here, and getting supplies and food can be quite the challenge, even deadly. I don't blame them for not sticking around. So the mine was left to it's own. When I visited in 2004, I was amazed that the entire place was not condemned. There were SO many accidents waiting to happen. Buildings holding on by a single nail that I was sure were going to collapse to the ground at any moment. Of course, this did not stop me from climbing inside them and exploring every nook and cranny I could find. Dangerous maybe, but too lucrative to stop me!
You can see from this picture above that the building has really aged, just look at that 'ladder'. That's how most of the mine's buildings looked when I was there. There has been a tremendous amount of work done since then however. It likely looks pretty stable to you now. Kennecott was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1986. The National Park Service has been stabilizing many of the buildings in the last few years. They've done some amazing work! Though the precarious ghost town was fun to run around in, I'm glad these buildings will saved for many generations to enjoy. It tells such a great story of our past, and what man will do for survival and money.
Though the camps were very primitive in the beginning. They had such success they began to live quite nicely in camp.
This was such a massive production site, they've even started to give guided tours through the mine. Getting a look at the inside were all the real production happened was amazing. I still can't believe they actually got all of this heavy equipment here!
There's so much to explore and see here, I could on and on. But you get the main idea. This is truly an amazing and inspiring site to see. If you ever get to Alaska, don't miss a trip to Kennecott, you'll be glad you did. Just remember to bring some instant flat-fixer- that road is precarious!
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