John E. Ballaine and The Alaska Central Railway

“Ballaine’s decision was a compound of necessity, careful decision, intuition, and hope.” William H. Wilson, Railroad in the Clouds (Pruett Publishing, 1977)

Gold, coal, timber and other natural resources were the motivating factors in the construction of early railroads in the territory of Alaska, and there were many of them, by one count over thirty. In 1900 John E. Ballaine, a young real estate and newspaper businessman in Seattle, foresaw the value of an "all-American" route to the rich Klondike gold fields in Canada, while also noting the potential wealth of resources which opening such a route would make available in Alaska. He began investigating the options for a rail line from Alaskan tidewater, where a port could be established, to the large interior rivers such as the Tanana and the Yukon, which were already well-traveled by freight barges and big steam-driven sternwheelers.

Dismissing the sites of Cordova and Valdez due to their formidable construction problems and already being claimed by the Morgan-Guggenheim Alaska Syndicate, and bypassing what would later be the ports of Whittier and Anchorage because of tricky access problems, Ballaine settled on a site at the head of Resurrection Bay which remained ice-free even in winter. A longabandoned Native village site was located near the head of Resurrection Bay; Frank Lowell and his family settled there in 1884. In 1895, when gold was discovered in the Sunrise-Hope area, the old Native trails provided a popular access route for mail and supplies from the head of the Bay to the new goldfields on Turnagain Arm.

On May 30, 1898, a small party of the United States Geological Society (USGS), lead by Lt. H.G. Learnard, landed at Resurrection Bay with the purpose of exploring the territory for a route from tidewater to the Tanana River. Learnard’s party mapped the trails from Resurrection Bay to Turnagain Arm and from Crow Creek across the Chugach Mountains to Eagle River, a route which would come to be known as the Iditarod Trail. The official reports included references to extensive coal fields along the Matanuska River, and the agricultural possibilities of the Matanuska Valley, and they influenced the decision of John Ballaine to pursue a route from the head of Resurrection Bay to the head of Turnagain Arm and thence along the north side of the Arm before curving around the bulk of the Chugach Mountains to Knik Arm and beyond.

With the help of his brother Frank and a large group of Seattle businessmen who liked his northern venture, Ballaine raised over $30 million dollars in capital and organized the Alaska Central Railroad Company in March, 1902. He acquired the Lowell family homestead, situated on land which would one day become the town of Seward, and formed the Tanana Construction Company to build the new railway.

In 1902 Anton Eide began carrying the U. S. mail from Resurrection Bay to Sunrise and Hope under a contract which included a monthly steamer coming into the bay. Also in 1902 the steamer Bertha dropped a survey party led by F. G. Bleckly and John G. Scurry, who set out to scout and survey a route for the Alaska Central Railway Company, meeting a party at Broad Pass which was led by William G. Atwood, who had left Seattle in February bound for Nenana.

Then, on August 28, 1903, the steamer Santa Ana brought a landing party headed by the Ballaine brothers, John and Frank. They arrived with the intent to build the railroad - and with a party of settlers who would build a town to serve as the terminus. A year later there was a dock, a wharf, and a terminal, and two steamship companies were servicing the new town, the Alaska Pacific Navigation Company and the Alaska Commercial Company. By 1906 Seward was averaging 20 to 30 steamers a month.

First completed mile of the Alaska Central Railway, and headquarters, 1904.

Ballaine’s efforts to build a railroad into the wilderness exhausted his backers’ initial investment after only twenty miles of track, but the astute businessman set out on a crosscountry fund-raising campaign, extolling the virtues and the potential of Alaska, and in the wake of several gold rushes he found an interested and willing audience. In her sterling biography of Frederick Mears, the man who would one day oversee construction of the Alaska Railroad, Katharine Carson Crittenden, the author of “Get Mears!,” described Seward’s founder John E. Ballaine in colorful terms: “...a natty, energetic railroad owner, nearly bald, with a carefully clipped mustache.”

Brothers John (left) and Frank Ballaine, 1915.

Crittenden explains what happened next: “Two financiers, A. C. Frost of Chicago and H. C. Osborne of Toronto, jumped at the chance to build a railroad in Alaska. They made an offer Ballaine could not refuse, starting their negotiations at $2.5 million. Soon after, backed by the Sovereign Bank of Canada to the extent of $3.5 million, with a contingent promise of up to $18 million more, they took over the line.”

All the previous investors were paid off, Frost became president of the company, and Ballaine held a minority share of the stock. The new investors built the rail line another twenty miles, to Mile 47, before bankruptcy forced the project into receivership. The Sovereign Bank of Canada stepped in, renamed the line the Alaska Northern Railroad, and built another twenty-five miles of track. By 1908, when construction stopped, the line had reached Kern Creek, at the head of Turnagain Arm, 72 miles from Seward.

Seward’s main street, 1904.

An article from the Seward Daily Gateway, on January 1, 1906, featured an article titled “How Seward Was Founded,” by John E. Ballaine, touted as “Originator and Promoter of the Alaska Central Railway and Founder of Seward, Alaska.” Ballaine wrote:

When I decided, in the latter part of 1901, to organize and promote a railroad from the Pacific Coast through Central Alaska to the Yukon valley, my first aim was to establish the ocean terminus on a harbor easy of access and free from obstruction every hour of every day of the year. My other requirements of the harbor were, if possible, that it should afford good shelter, ample depth of water, terminal facilities for wharves and bunkers, adjacent room for factories and smelters, an outlet for a railroad, and land area to accommodate an ultimate population of not less than 500,000.

I held the view that the ocean terminus was of prime importance for it would serve all future generations and in time become one of the world's important centers of commercial and industrial activity.

From every source of available information I examined in turn Tyonok, Seldovia, Knik, Port Wells, Valdez, Illiamna, Cordova Bay, Port Nellie Juan, Controller Bay, and Resurrection Bay. Odd as it may now seem, Resurrection Bay was the last that came to my notice, for it was then perhaps the least known harbor on the entire southern coast of Alaska.

My investigations had convinced me that the resources tributary to the route were diversified and abundant, including gold, copper, high grade coal, and the best timber and agricultural lands in Alaska. I therefore, in November 1902, definitely selected Resurrection Bay as the ocean terminus of the Alaska Central Railway.

The name of the future city was not finally chosen by me until the spring of 1903. By that time I had made encouraging headway in my efforts to raise money for the building of the Railroad, and it was important to have the starting point named even thought it then existed only in a virgin forest.

Engine #1, the first engine of the Alaska Central Railway, arriving in Seward, 1904. Originally built in 1883 for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The first Chief Engineer of the Railway Company, C. M. Anderson, had designated the place Vituska on all the blueprints he had prepared. He explained it to be a combination of Vitus, Captain Behring's given name, with the last syllable of Alaska. But the only names that occurred to me for serious consideration were Seward, McKinley, and Roosevelt. I finally concluded that the city destined to be the metropolis of the great territory could fittingly bear no other name than that of the man of his day who foresaw the ultimate primacy of the Pacific Ocean in the world's commerce. Accordingly, in March, 1903, I bestowed upon the new town-to-be the name of Seward, in honor of William H. Seward, President Lincoln's Secretary of State.

In 1903 the steamship Santa Ana arrived with the first cargo of construction material and a force of about thirty men to commence the preliminary construction of the Alaska Central Railway, such as building the wharf, setting the sawmill to work and clearing right of way, in preparation for permanent construction the following spring.

“On the Santa Ana also were a score of men who promptly established themselves in business. The construction force and these few business men, less than 100 in all, made up the bulk of Seward's population until March 1904, when the construction of the railroad was undertaken in earnest, and the growth of the town assured form and activity.”

The Engineering News, A Journal of Civil, Mechanical, Mining and Electrical Engineering, published Sept. 8, 1904, in New York, included the following article by A. W. Swanitz:

A Year’s Work on the Alaska Central Railway

The project of the Alaska Central railway was conceived, about two years ago, by a number of prominent Northwestern men, under the advice of Mr. C. M. Anderson, C. E. (Chief Engineer Alaska Central Ry. Co., Seward, Alaska) of Seattle, who was more or less familiar with central Alaska and the advisability of obtaining a practical line into the Interior. Government explorations and geological surveys, under Mendenhall and Major Glenn, have confirmed Mr. Anderson’s statement, not only as to the feasibility of the line, but also as to the vast agricultural and unsurpassed mineral resources of the country between Resurrection Bay, the Turnagain Arm country, the Matanuska, Sushitna, Chulitna and Cantwell River valleys and the Tanana River.

The principal questions to be solved were, first, an open-all-the-year-round harbor on the Pacific Coast, grades practicable for economic hauling of ore and coal at a reasonable cost, and the governing passes of the Alaska Coast range and mountains east of Mt. McKinley.

Accordingly eight engineer corps were placed in the field, under C. M. Anderson, Chief Engineer, two years ago, with instructions to obtain the solution to these questions by a preliminary survey from the Coast to the Tanana River. Their various reports fully confirmed previous impressions, showing a possible alignment almost due north from Resurrection Bay; showing an unsurpassed landlocked harbor at the southern terminus, and crossing, at Moose Pass, of the Coast Range, at a maximum elevation of 900 ft., and a crossing of the mountain range east of Mt. McKinley, at Broad Pass, at 2,300 ft. maximum elevation.

Tracks of the Alaska Central Railway at Mile 22, Lake Kenai, 1906.

Again, their reports showed the wonderful resources of that country in placer and ledge gold fields; in coal of superior quality, assaying from 65% to 90% fixed carbon; in large outcroppings of copper ore; in tin and platinum on the upper reaches of the Sushitna River; in fertile valleys of grazing lands, and confirming the official reports of the Government agricultural stations showing that all of the vegetables of the northern temperate zone, grains and grasses were, and could be, raised in the interior valleys with equal success and results as in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Encouraged by these reports, further preliminary capital was raised and the first actual construction party was landed at Resurrection Bay under the writer, in August, 1903. Nothing was there to encourage newcomers but a forest of spruce, hemlock, etc. Today, after nine months, there is a town of about 900 inhabitants, with stores, electric light and telephone systems and all the appurtenances of a Northwestern railway and mining town.

The original construction party, at landing, was provided with tools and supplies of all kinds, from a box of pills to a sawmill outfit; from calico and coffee to pile driving machinery. In short order the Headquarters of the Alaska Central Railway, built for $55,000 at the corner of Fifth and Adams Streets. Photo circa 1909.

The construction force was largely increased by the last of March, and a substantial wharf, warehouse, with pile trestle approach to the wharf, was completed in April. The first rails of the Alaska Central Railway were laid on the wharf at Seward, the southern terminus, on April 16. Since then, regular construction work has been pushed, under increasing pressure, with the result that at the date this is written, July 12, seven miles of track have been laid, the first eleven miles of grading have been completed and an additional twenty miles is under fair progress of construction.

Considering the distance of this enterprise from the labor and supply market, its cost to date has been very reasonable and much below the original estimates. About half the distance of the 413 miles passes through a heavily timbered country of spruce and hemlock, with some cedar, birch and Balm of Gilead trees. The other half traverses largely the grazing lands of the Sushitna and Chulitna valleys.

The heavier construction work consists principally of sidehill cuttings. The cost of labor has been firmly established, at this time, at $2.50 per day for all shovel work, grading, and surfacing; at $2.75 for drilling and powder work; at $3.00 for bridge carpenters and steel men; and at from $3.50 to $4.00 per day for foremen. Comparatively few teams are used on grading. Teams for logging, tie and sawmill work are paid, with driver, $6.00 per day; the cost of feed averages 98 cents per team per day; driver’s wages $2.75; stable and harness repairs, about 21 cents. The cost of earthwork, under these circumstances, being nearly all pick, shovel and barrow work, has averaged to date about 17 1/2 cts. per yd; solid rock work, 72 cts. per yd, counting 29 cts. per yd. for cost of powder and its transportation. The character of the rock varies somewhat. Micaceous schist and slate seems to be prevailing. Auriferous quartz and limestone has been found in a number of cuts.

The cost of bridge work has been found much below the general average and running as low as $2.95 per lin. ft. on pile bridging. The company’s sawmill furnishes 8 x 16 x 28 ft. stringers at $8 per M; piles are 1¢. to 1 1/2¢. per lin. ft. delivered. 6 x 8-in. x 8-ft. ties cost 25 cts. delivered on the right of way. There is a superabundance of heavy timber within easy reach at nearly all points of the line. The Alaska spruce, used for piling, has been found to be of excellent quality and piles 100 ft. long, 10 ins. at the small end, and showing scarcely any effect at last hammer blow with a 3,000-lb. hammer.

The construction company is maintaining a large and efficient commissary, furnishing board to its employees at $6 per week, but no employee is prohibited from keeping his own mess, and many of the smaller station men and subcontractors claim $4 per week covers all their expenses. The only labor difficulty and trouble experienced so far is caused by frequent findings of rich placer gold locations. A large number of prospectors are constantly at work on creeks and river tributaries within easy traveling distance. These men will come to Seward, the road’s southern terminus, with nuggets and gold dust often showing net earnings of from $8 to $15 per day with rocker and pan, and generally, after a payday, a not inconsiderable portion of the grading and tracklaying forces scatters to try prospecting in hopes of big finds. About one in twenty will succeed, in a week’s time, in finding a good place, while the others straggle back, quite willing to resume the company’s shovel and pick.

All things considered, there is a great future for this railway. It will place the Yukon River, Nome and Dawson and the great new mining district of the Tanana within five days easy travel of Seattle, Portland, and Tacoma, as against 28 to 30 days now.

The Ballaine House in Seward, built in 1905 by Frank Ballaine, became a local landmark. Frank also founded the first newspaper, the Seward Gateway, in 1904.

Glowing reports aside, Ballaine’s Alaska Central Railway was never completed. Edwin M. Fitch explained in his 1967 book, The Alaska Railroad: "The fifty miles of railroad that were built and somewhat shakily operated by the company paid nothing on its stock, and the railroad failed to survive the panic of 1907. Bankrupt in 1908, The Alaska Central operated under receivership until 1910, when it was reorganized as the Alaska Northern Railway Company."

In 1909, when the Alaska Northern Railway took over, there was a little more than 50 miles of useable track laid, including the unusual but unfinished “Loop District,” an engineering marvel designed to allow travel over the backbone of the Kenai Mountain range.

On September 15, 1912, four federal railroad commissioners stepped ashore at Seward with a Congressional mandate to study and recommend the Alaska railroad routes which would best “develop the country and the resources thereof for the use of the people of the United States.”

In April, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson selected a route for The Alaska Railroad, beginning at Seward and including purchase of the Alaska Northern Railway, proceeding northward around Cook Inlet, across the Matanuska and Susitna Valleys, through the Alaska Range at Broad Pass, and crossing the Tanana River to end in Fairbanks. ~•~

Excerpted from The Alaska Railroad: 1902-1923, by Helen Hegener, Northern Light Media, 2017