Our little cabin is located in downtown McCarthy, Alaska.

A hundred years ago, McCarthy was a hopping gold mining town. There was a Hardware Store, a bar, a school, and even a lingerie shop.

There was also a brothel which is why the little town could support a store that sold only undies. Today, there are about 60 people who actually live in the area through the cold dark winter when temperatures regularly sit at 30 below for days on end.

During spring break, the number of people in town must quadruple. This is understandable. Spring time in McCarthy, Alaska will make your heart ache–it’s just that beautiful. The summer population is kind of hard to imagine on a day like today, but literally hundreds of people live here during the tourism season.

Just a block up the road from us is the town center. Hotel on your right, bar and restaurant on your left.

Further down the road is the McCarthy Kennicott Historical Museum which is located in an old train depot. One hundred years ago, there was train that ran from Kennicott to Cordova, Alaska–that’s 196 miles of train track in Alaskan wilderness.

Tony Zac’s is where we have our town meetings. McCarthy is not incorporated, but we do have a governing council called the McCarthy Area Council; MAC for short. MAC has open meetings once a month from March through September. It is democracy in its purest form. Everyone gets one vote and the special interests have yet to make any progress with those who show up to make this town run. The entire spectrum of political opinion sits together and makes things work. Last year we got a well. Yep, we got a well.

McCarthy is located in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park. The park was established in 1980 and is the largest national park in the United States. This makes things very interesting. Can you imagine living in a national park on property you own? This is part of why I find MAC meetings so engaging.

To me it is absolutely amazing to think McCarthy was a bustling town in the middle of Alaska back in the day when women wore skirts and corsets, but things are even wackier than that.

Walt and I hiked five miles up the road, so I could show you what I’m talking about. Five miles of beautiful Alaskan wilderness.

And then this.

Another rural Alaskan ghost town.

This one is called Kennecott, and it is owned by the park. Back in the day, it was a copper mining town. The Guggenheims and Morgans were involved so you know there was some serious ore to be found in the mines surrounding Kennecott. It was a company town of the most isolated nature, and McCarthy was the City of Sin down the road. The mine operated from 1911 until 1938 producing 4.625 million tons of copper ore.

Every time I see these buildings I am blown away by the fact that they were built in such remoteness under such harsh conditions.

I know how long it took me to get to Kennecott, which makes me have a hard time imagining the systems required to make that town happen.

The park is in the process of restoring the building associated with the mines. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I sort of love seeing the buildings in their natural stages of decay. And I’m a bit afraid of a Silver Dollar City type circus becoming the reality of the place. Still it is fascinating to watch the transformation.

I hope my story has inspired you to take a walk. It’s good for you.

12 Mar This entry was published on March 12, 2014 at 7:17 PM. It’s filed under Alaska, Just Plain Stories and tagged Alaska, Kennecott Alaska, McCarthy. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.