205 Kennecott Copper Concentration Mill, Alaska

 

A brief history of the McCarthy & Kennicott area The year was 1900. Jack Smith and Clarence Warner, two prospectors, spotted a large green spot on the mountainside between the Kennicott Glacier and McCarthy Creek. What looked like a patch of green grass turned out to be one of the richest deposits of copper ore ever found! Stephen Birch, a young mining engineer looking for Alaskan claims in 1901, was approached by Smith to make an inspection of his findings. Eventually, Birch got the backing of men such as the Guggenheim brothers and J.P. Morgan who bought the existing claims. In 1906 Kennecott Mines Company was formed, which later became Kennecott Copper Corporation. The next hurdle was to transport the copper ore from the mines to the coastal town of Cordova, where it would be shipped to Tacoma, Washington, by the Alaska Steamship Company for smelting. Michael J. Heney, a master railroad builder, was called upon to oversee the construction of the Copper River Northwestern Railway. Construction began the spring of 1908 at Cordova and stretched 196 miles to the Kennecott mines.