Rika's Landing Roadhouse

Known Rika 's Landing Roadhouse, also known as Rika 's Landing site or McCarty Roadhouse, a roadhouse at a historically important crossing over the Tanana River at mile marker 274.5 in the course of the Richardson Highway in Big Delta in the Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Alaska, United States. It is located within the Big Delta State Historical Park and is run since 1976 on the National Register of Historic Places. The rest house is named after Rika Wallen, which it received from John Hajdukovich and farmed for many years.

Start time

Today's Richardson Highway had its origin as Packeselweg from the port of Valdez to Eagle, downstream located on the Yukon River from Dawson, which was built in 1898 by the U.S. Army to provide a purely U.S. access to the deposits of gold, the discovery of led to the Klondike Gold Rush. After the end of the gold rush, the army stopped the way in operation to supply the outpost Fort Liscum, Valdez and Fort Egbert. The Fairbanks gold rush in 1902 and the construction of a telegraph line of WAMCATS by the U.S. Army Signal Corps under the then Lieutenant Billy Mitchell in 1903 made ​​the Valdez -to- Eagle Trail and its branch line to Fairbanks at one of the main access routes into Interior Alaska.

There were 37 Rest Houses - of them are some more also listed on the National Register of Historic Places - built on the trail to make the traveler's journey more enjoyable. It meals and sleeping quarters were offered and sold equipment. These rest houses were mostly apart 15-20 miles ( 25-35 km).

The Tanana River was one of the largest rivers, which had to be crossed on this route. Directly above the confluence of the Tanana River and Delta River, a ferry was established. This, then called Bates Landing, was about 12 km north of the present settlement Delta Junction, in the area which is now known as Big Delta. The government demanded on the south side of a toll for the translation of those who traveled northward.

On the southern bank of the river built in April 1904 prospector named Ben Bennett on his extensive 80 acre property at Bates Landing a trading post on, but in 1905 he sold his property to Daniel G. McCarty. However, since E.T. Barnette, the founder of the city of Fairbanks and former employers McCarty, who had financed goods, he remained their owners. The trading post was now used as a rest house and was known as McCarty 's. Another prospector named Alonzo Maxey built up with a friend Bradley 's Roadhouse, which competed with the McCarty and McCarty in 1907 transferred his rest house in Maxey.

The crossing of the Tanana River by the WAMCATS telegraph line in 1907 justified the establishment of a telegraph station, McCarty station, when the situation this station was relocated after a fire. In several log cabins the telegraph office, the office of a mediator, the accommodations for two workers for the maintenance of the connection and the bearings were housed for their equipment and supplies.

Era Hajdukovich

In 1906, or possibly some time later felt Jovo 'John' Hajdukovich, an entrepreneur who had come in 1903 from Montenegro to Alaska, the business opportunity and bought the trading post with the rest house of Maxey. Hajdukovich built in 1909 a new and larger rest-house, where he used logs, which he heranfloßte on the river, but he used the old buildings continue to store his equipment.

Hadukovich had other business interests, including exploring for, freight transport and as a hunting guide - he led hunting parties in the Granite Mountains. He also advocated the Athabaska, with whom he engaged in trade, and later played an important role in creating the Tetlin Reserve. Hadukovich also exercised the function of the U.S. from Game Commissioner of the area and was unable to operate the roadhouse fully valid. As with many other such rest houses that were not constantly managed, Hadukovich urged travelers to itself to accommodate and for all what they used to leave some money. Despite this informal business practices prospered his business.

From 1904 on, the trail was expanded. 1907 or certainly before 1910, the Alaska Road Commission had completed the expansion, so that became a road for vehicles from the packhorse route. The project was headed by Major Wilds P. Richardson, after the highway was later named. Wagons used the road busily, and in the winter sleigh in summer carriages were used. By 1913, the roadhouse was a local center for gold prospectors, hunters, traders and coachmen.

In the meantime came Erika ' Rika ' Wallen, as Lovisa Erika Jakobson on a farm near Örebro in Sweden saw the light of day in 1874, to America. She left in 1891 with her sister and her brother Carl Jacobson in Minneapolis, Minnesota down, where they changed their last name to Wallen. After Carl died in an accident, the two sisters went to San Francisco, where Rika took a job as a cook of the Hills Brothers family. In this position it remained until the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. 1916 Rika traveled to Valdez, because she thought, it is said that Alaska was like Sweden.

Rika takes over the Roadhouse

After she held jobs as a cook in the copper mine of Kennecott and for a pension in Fairbanks, Rika came to Big Delta and 1917 or 1918 presented John Hadukovich Rika Wallen to in order to ensure operation in the rest house, which was still known as McCarty 's time.

Although John pursued a number of business activities, he was not always solvent. He was, for example, once not paid for lumber, which he delivered to the construction of the ALCAN highway, because it did not result in the necessary records. Either 1918 or 1923, he transferred the rest house at Rika Wallen to an amount of $ 10 and other considerations, presumably regarding backlogs in payment of wages. Your friendship and partnership continued for many years to continue, there is ambiguity about what relationship Wallen and Hadukovich were to each other. The rest-house was soon called the local customs Following Rika 's Roadhouse. At this time the rest house had eleven bedrooms, a living room and a large dining and kitchen area.

1925 Rika had received U.S. citizenship and made after the homestead law a claim for 160 acres of land claims, where she cultivated foods and livestock held, including sheep, poultry and goats. It processed the sheep's wool, milk, butter and cheese. They also bred silver foxes, ducks, geese, rabbits and honeybees. With the help of oxen plowing in the field and built grain. Rika was a natural in agriculture and managed to farm, where others failed. She developed a heating and ventilation system for their stalls to allow the cattle to survive in the harsh winter.

As Rika bought the rest house, the floors still rammed earth and the walls were raw. In order to improve the interior, they gathered here and there wallpapers, being different papered boards and moved the individual walls on the floor of hardwood, they received vehicle machine operators and boat people who visited the roadhouse. Their ability to produce agricultural products and their hospitality made ​​the rest house to a place where the travelers were served from Rika's garden is a dining table with fresh milk and eggs, berries, fish, game, fruit and vegetables, before they turn into the accommodation spaces retired to the multi-story building. A guide of the Richardson Highway, which was published in 1929, described the rest house as " a spacious rest-house, which boasts such Luxuses, such as fresh milk and poultry ."

1926 added Rika added a wing, who succeeded additional living space in which a store for alcohol, a warehouse for furs and the Big Delta Post Office (then known as Washburn ) were housed. She was until 1946 postmaster. Finally, Rika also made a delimiting property to their property, which included so all in all 320 acres.

End of an Era

1922, the Alaska Railroad was completed. This and other factors, such as the Great Depression, led in the 1930s to a decline in freight traffic along the route. 1935 tried the Alaska Road Commission by increasing the Fährgebühr move to almost ten dollars per ton, the carters to use the railway. The carters rebelled against it, and in the time it came to the start of the Second World War in a series of clashes and to operate a ferry nichtkonzessionierten.

With the outbreak of war and the construction of the ALCAN Highway, which was south of Big Delta connected to the Richardson Highway, the traffic continued to decline. The Fährübergang was replaced by a wooden bridge and a few years later something was further downriver built a large steel bridge, so that the road ran from the rest house further away. Rika ran the roadhouse during the 1940s and at the beginning of 1950, although guests were received by invitation only in the later years. John Hajdukovich died in 1965 and Rika Wallen four years later.

" For fifty years, Rika was a cornerstone for the errant John. While John acted and prospected, Rika directed the pivotal point of the crossroads at the upper Tanana. Your device was a "city " for three hundred people who were moving along the paths on the alaskan - Canadian border. John and Rika were the history of the Upper Tanana Valley. "

Rika 's Roadhouse and its outbuildings are now part of the Big Delta State Historical Park and the rest house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

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