Cleveland High School - Beacon Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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Old timers told them that they were up against the toughest one hundred and ten miles of track in the world. When they first arrived, they looked with disbelief at the old couplet that hung painted on a spruce plank over the counter at the Pack Train: This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall thriveg That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive. A few months later they scoffed no more. So amid Alaskan bliz- zards too cold for a polar bear, the Army played Casey Jones to a vital stretch of railroad too steep for a goat. During these operations the tem- erature dropped to seventy-two degrees below zero. Anti-freeze hardened in the cans, and truck motors had to be kept running all night or they would not start in the morning. When trains stopped to take on water, the locomotive wheels froze to the rails. Often they were not broken loose until another engine was summoned, by wire, to give the train a shattering bump. These soldiers accomplished in twenty-four hours what had previously taken two weeks. The arrival of the cargo on the freight of this line not only meant that the Alaska Highway would be completed ahead of schedule but that new runways and hangars could be added to the vital airports along the road. Many civilian construction workers and 22,000 troops have been transported through the frigid zone by the soldier railroaders. Some of the workers and soldiers are going to make Alaska their permanent home in the future. There are thousands like them. They have come to keep free the freest part of all America, to keep it free with the rest. Many of them, their task completed, will stay. They will homestead, and the love of adventure that is in the American's heart will hold them there. But only convenient transportation will bring them there, and this transportation is being improved to convey the homesteaders to Alaska, remnant of a world which fulfills the American dream and may play a still greater part in fulfilling our destiny. GRACE AME1ss. J N 4. .h. i A f 1 ' ' a I E- 1 L ggi' fb ' J-:Sin 1, X -: g - J -L - L 1 0

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wedlock of .jfanyoorfafion in .fdfcwlu There are many and diverse methods of transportation in the country that, in 1867, was known as Seward's Iceboxf' At that time it seemed sheer wasteful extravagance to pay 557,000,000 for miles of icebergs and polar bears. Since then, it has been realized that Alaska is a region of rich mineral deposits, great agricultural value, vast timber reserves, ex- cellent food-fish, valuable fur-bearing animals, and it holds a strategic position in the present war. Surely, highways and methods of transpor- tation play an important part in our relations with so valuable a posses- sion. Twenty-five years ago the dog team was the only method of trans- portation when the fierce Alaska winters paralyzed the rivers. A good dog in Alaska is worth anywhere from seventy-five dollars and up. The thick-furred, long-legged Labrador huskies are the most powerful as well as the most valuable dog. A load of one hundred and fifty pounds per dog is the usual burden and seven to nine dogs are attached. Seventy miles a day is the rule with drivers and their teams. Then came the earlier aviators who, until a year or two ago, iiew without navigational aids, guessed at weather, alighted on incredibly small clearings, on beaches, and on river sand bars. They alighted on lakes, and coastal waters with pontoons and on frozen lakes with skis. They have written a chapter in the winning of the air, which will always be memorable in the history of bravery, valor and skill. Now, war has brought men to Alaska: engineers and construction workers-boys from the United States. In 1940, a road to Alaska was just a dream, with many alternate routes under consideration. Now, the highway, known as Route C, has actually been constructed by Army engineers. Not so long ago, General Henry Arnold, commanding our Army Air Forces, said, Never has a road been so important to airmen as the Alaskan Highway. Some time ago, in 1914 to be exact, after prolonged agitation, Con- gress passed an act for the construction of a government railroad and appropriated thirty-five million dollars for it. The total revenue of the Alaska Railroad in 1934 was S1,476,568g its operating expenses were slightly over that. In connection with this war, the soldiers of the 770th Railway Operating Battalion were called upon to operate one hundred and ten miles of railroad along the White Pass and Yukon. 28

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