Early Communication in Mt. McKinley National Park

Ranger Les Viereck repairing the telephone line in 1950. Viereck was a respected mountain climber, plant ecologist, and conservationist

DENA Museum, Les Viereck Collection

Did I Just Trip over a Telephone Line in the Wilderness?

For those traveling west along the Denali Park Road, cellular phone service usually does not extend beyond the first few miles. Communication by satellite phones and radio is possible but evidence of those systems is not easily detectable on the vast landscape adjacent to the road. This was not always the case.

Beginning in 1924, as the park road was being constructed westward from the train station, the park built a telephone line to Savage River where the concessionaire had built the first tourist camp. A Superintendent Monthly Report from 1924 stated, “We have decided to hang the telephone wire in the trees along the road as it will be only a temporary line.” Employees of the park, the Alaska Road Commission, and concessions operation used the line which paralleled the park road. The line was extended to Sanctuary in 1926, but remained largely a ground line.

The telephone line ran all the way out to the Copper Mountain Relief Cabin near Mt. Eielson. This photo was taken in 1966 after the cabin was inundated with river gravel.

DENA Museum, 21408

By 1930, the road was constructed farther west into the park and a plan was in place to continue the telephone line to the Copper River Relief Cabin near Mount Eielson.[1]A contractor in Anchorage was hired in August 1930 to build the telephone line to Eielson by the end of the year. In October, the Superintendent reported that “30 miles of tripods have been erected and wire strung on the same.”

A line of telephone poles cutting through Mt. McKinley National Park in June 1952

DENA Museum, 23784

The telephone line was completed by December 1st, but the winter took a toll on the newly constructed tripods. In the spring, the Superintendent reported many tripods collapsing because of the spring thaw. Wind in late summer of 1931 knocked over ten miles of tripods and park staff spent significant time repairing the damage. In 1934, the telephone line was extended to Mile 70. The Civilian Conservation Corps had a crew update 41 miles of telephone line between the railroad station and Sable Pass, some of the work involved installing single vertical poles.

In the summer of 2019, park staff encountered the telephone line near the East Fork River

NPS Photo / Denny Capps

The telephone line was operational until the early 1950s, but by 1955, the park was removing the line and now remnants of it still remain despite the preliminary clean-up.

Hikers and park employees sometimes stumble upon telephone line evidence in the “Plains of Murie” and elsewhere but it is not to be removed. The line is a part of the park’s past and is material evidence of the park’s early communication system.

Evidence of other communication systems still remain in the park. This telephone booth in the park's headquarters might be unrecognizable to future generations but it served an important function for past Denali visitors.

NPS Photo / William Clark

[1] The Copper Mountain Relief Cabin was constructed by Grant Pearson in 1928 and used by park staff, miners, and surveyors. The site is visible from the Eielson Visitor Center but little of the cabin site remains. Mount Eielson was formerly called “Copper Mountain,” but was changed to honor Carl Ben Eielson in 1930 after he tragically died in a plane crash (in 1924, Eielson became first pilot to land in the park).