| Alaska Central Railway Two brothers who had a dream of building a railroad
from Resurrection Bay, to central Alaska. Brothers John E. Ballaine and
Frank L. Ballaine men who had a vision of connecting the interior of Alaska
with the coast. This was the start of today's Alaska Railroad, the story
of the building of that road follows. The Ballaine brothers landed on the
shores of Resurrection Bay, purchased the Lowells Homestead. Laid out the
town site of Seward and with a survey
crew and began to lay out preliminary lines for the railroad from
Seward to the Tanana River. The Ballaines had helped organizing a company
and sell stock. In 1902 more stock was sold and a survey party was sent
to Cook Inlet, south of present day Anchorage. Offices were setup in the
Shackleford Mining Company house in the soon to be town of Seward.
The Alaska Central Railway borrowed money to begin building the first
twenty miles of rail. The new camp on Resurrection Bay was named Seward.On
August 12, 1903 Mary Lowell sold her homestead to the Ballaines. This land
and 160 acres of land obtained by the Ballaines under Civil War Soldiers
Addition Homestead Script was to become toady's Seward. The Ballaines divided
this land into lots and named streets, after Presidents. They sold these
lots to help finance the rail line north.
On August 27, 1903 the steam ship Santa Ana arrived with men and equipment
and the building of the Alaska Center Railroad began.The crew built winter
housing for the railroad crews. A dock one hundred and fifty feet long
was built and rail was laid out to Resurrection River. The railroaders
had started the first miles of the 420 miles from Seward to the Tanana
River
On March 28, 1904, the steamer Santa Clara arrived with men who had
built other railroads. They began grading the bed for the new railroad.
On April 23, 1904 the Santa Clara arrived with a forty ton Baldwin
locomotive. Now supplies could be taken by the expanded rail to the construction
site. The James Dollar arrived with two hundred tons of steel rails. In
the fall of 1904 the rail line was at Kenai Lake, some eighteen miles from
Seward. In December of the same year the rail had been pushed to Snow River.
The fact that there were known coal reserves at the Matanuska River,
known as the Matanuska Coal Fields, helped the builders believe that the
railroad could be profitable. The locomotives used coal as did most people
of the day. The good ice free harbor at Seward could be used to ship the
coal south. There was talk of putting a coaling station at Seward, for
the U. S. Navy.
In 1905 a second locomotive arrived in Seward on the Santa Ana.
The third locomotive arrived on the steamer Edith in August 1905. It was
put on the track and went to work immediately carrying supplies to the
end of the rail. In December 1905 rail had been laid to mile 44. The crews
had began boring six tunnels with a total length of four thousand feet.
The tunnelers worked twenty fours hours a day boring the tunnels. |
