Finding laborers with strong backs apparently was no problem for management of the fledgling Copper River Railroad in 1906.
The Seattle Star of Aug. 6, 1906, under the headline “Men wanted at Cordova,” announced that jobs for 500 men needed to be filled at the construction site. The job paid 30 cents an hour, and workers could put in as many hours as they chose.
Entrepreneur Michael J. Heney had started construction in the town of Eyak, renaming it Cordova, the name for the port chosen by Spanish explorer Salvador Fidalgo Y Lopegarcia on June 3, 1790.
Heney was the brilliant mastermind who had overcome all obstacles to construct the narrow-gauge White Pass & Yukon Railway from Skagway to Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory.
At the same time, Heney began unloading rails shipped by steamer from Washington state. Heney had arranged financing with financiers Close Brothers of London.
In addition, that August saw the loading at Seattle’s Pier One of one tiny steam locomotive, 27 railway cars, and tons of rails and other cargo aboard a massive steamship bound for Cordova. The loading operations were overseen by chief engineer William Simpson.
By Sept. 23, 1906, the Copper River railway workforce already topped 700 men. Already the track extended from the wharf to the town of Cordova, a distance of 1.5 miles.
The company announced grading work underway would continue the following winter. The company hoped to lay down the first 20 miles of track inland before winter, reported the Tacoma Daily Ledger.
Some interesting developments occurred before the winter’s heavy snows commenced, however.
Heney elected to sell his enterprise to wealthy M. Guggenheim & Sons, then closely allied in a syndicate with wealthy J. P. Morgan.
The Guggenheims intended for Cordova to serve as the terminus of its railroad interests in Alaska’s Interior, changing its previous plans to end at Catalla (also sometimes spelled Katalla), an oil-rich area 47 miles southeast of Cordova and destined to shutter as a ghost town. However, a terrible storm devastated railway holdings in Catalla, leading to a change of heart and passage by the Guggenheims.
By early November of 1907, the Guggenheims found they needed the experienced Heney’s engineering expertise and contracted with him to build the Copper River and Northwestern line from Cordova through Chitina to the Copper Mines, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of Nov. 9, 1907.
Heney’s railroad would be completed by 1911. When completed, the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad would extend for 195 miles. However, engineer Heney, nicknamed “the Irish Prince,” would contract tuberculosis and fail to see this dream fully realized.
Henry died at age 45 in San Francisco on Oct. 11, 1910.
Hank Nuwer is an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
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