Alaskan History
Fairbanks Airport, Cabin Plane ready to take off with party consisting of Gov. Parks, Major Elliott, and Mr. Sommers. June 7, 1928. [George A. Parks. Photographs, 1911-1933. ASL-PCA-240-006]
Gov. G. A. Parks’ 1928 Airplane Tour of Alaska In the early summer of 1928 an unprecedented aerial trip was undertaken by the Governor of the Territory of Alaska, George A. Parks. Accompanied by the president of the Alaska Road Commission and the Territorial highway engineer, the Governor was flown between towns and mining camps, Native villages and roadhouses, in the first extensive tour of Alaska via airplane, by pilot A. A. Bennett of the Bennett-Rodebaugh Airplane Company. The photographs taken on the trip portray a country on the cusp of change, a rich, wild land just beginning to awaken to its potential. The purpose of the trip was to ascertain the need for more highways in Alaska and to discern the work already done on various existing routes such as the Richardson Highway; in 1928 there were less than 500 miles of paved roads in the entire state (363 miles on the Richardson Highway and the first 44 miles of the Steese Highway). The trip to northern and interior Alaska was the first extensive trip by airplane made by an Alaskan governor, and in total the small group traveled 4,580 miles, of which 385 were by steamship, 467 by rail, 281 by railroad speeders (automobiles adapted to ride on the rails), 432 by truck and automobile, 8 by horse and wagon and 2,007 by air. Over three dozen photographs are available to view online at the Alaska Digital Archives (see Resources, page 48), including "Bill and wife at their cabin on Ophir-Takotna Road. These people are mining placer gold;” "Freighting on Yukon Highway near Goldstream;” "Tunnel at head of Fox Gulch, tapping Chatanika River watershed for for dredges in Goldstream;” "Gold Dredge at Flat;” "Cabin on Nome-Shelton tram near Nome bridge;” "Gas-driven speeder on
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