The Yakutat and Southern Railroad was possibly the most unique in
Alaska because its main objective was to haul raw fish.
In 1903, F.S. Stimson of Seattle and some associates
incorporated the Stimson Lumber Company and the Yakutat and
Southern Railroad, with the announced intention of operating a
salmon cannery, sawmill, railroad, and general store. They
eventually did all four but the railroad and sawmill came first.
Thus the railroad’s first duty became that of hauling
timber.
The Yakutat and Southern Railroad was Southeast Alaska’s
first standard-gauge rail line. Its trackage was standard gauge
with forty pound rails. It ran from the cannery wharf and ended
eleven miles away near Johnson Slough, near the lower portion of
the Situk River.
The original Stimson Company carried on the operation for a
number of years. Then it was taken over by Gorman and Company which
had a number of canneries in Southeast Alaska. During these early
days of the railroad, there was talk of extending the railroad
southward on the coastal plain to the mouth of the Alsek river at
Dry Bay. Nothing came of it because of the large number of bridges
which would have been needed.
The Yakutat and Southern Railroad’s equipment included a
Heisler No. 1092 engine which had been built for the New York
Elevated Railroad. This Heisler engine made the journey from the
busy rails of New York City to Yakutat, where it owned the entire
track. The equipment also included a Lima No. 1057 engine. The Lima
was built in August of 1913 and it can still be seen today if you
drive down the main street in Yakutat. For years, the Yakutat and
Southern Railroad pulled fish and supplies to and from the fish
camps.
Aside from fighting an occasional fire, the only change in duty
the Yakutat and Southern Railroad saw was with the introduction of
World War II. As Yakutat grew with the war, so did the functions of
the railroad. All supplies which were used to build the airport
facilities and the airport itself were carried from town out to the
present location of the airport by the Yakutat and Southern
Railroad. The military used the railroad to get their military
operation started.
During the war locomotives became uneconomical to use and a 6X6
army truck was fitted with flanged wheels to travel by rail. Trucks
ran the rails during the time between the war and the building of
the road in 1971.
The end of the railroad came with the bankruptcy of the Yakutat
and Southern Railroad. The company pulled up the tracks and sold
them to a Japanese salvage company in an attempt to stave off
bankruptcy.
The history of the Yakutat and Southern Railroad is indeed part
of Yakutat’s history. The people who worked, rode, or even
saw the train will never forget it. Some plans were recently
announced for the reconstruction of the track and the restoring of
the Lima engine as a tourist attraction.
For more information, go to www.yakuktat.southern.org Source of
the above information came from the booklet “Yakutat &
Southern RR” by James Eklund.
The cache you are looking for is a camoed waterproofed match
container with a rite in the rain log sheet. You will need to bring
your own writing tool as it is too small for any we had with us.
There is a “special” reward for the first finder.