- Where
- Wrangell–St. Elias National Park
beside the Kennicott Glacier, Alaska - Coordinates
- 61.4860° N
142.8860° W - The mill
- 14 storeys, timber frame
(National Park Service) - Worked
- First ore train 1911
last train 10 November 1938 - Status
- National Historic Landmark, 1986
National Park Service - Getting there
- 59 miles of gravel road
then a footbridge and 5 miles - Best visited
- Late May to early September
The road gave up at a grey, hurrying river, so I crossed on foot and kept going. Then the red buildings began, tall and leaning a little, stepped down the hill like a family arranged for a photograph. Below them lay a glacier so heaped with stones I mistook it for a quarry. Inside the tallest building, the afternoon came through the boards in stripes, and smelled of old timber.
The short answer
Kennecott is an abandoned copper-mining camp beside the Kennicott Glacier, inside Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Wikipedia describes it as the centre of activity for several copper mines: five of them, Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode, Erie and Glacier, high on Bonanza Ridge above the town, from which ore came down by aerial tramway to the mill and then went 196 rail miles to the port of Cordova. The Park Service’s National Historic Landmark record counts more than seventy-six buildings in the mill town and mine camps, ranging from outhouses to the fourteen-storey timber mill, and describes the company town as painted red with white trim. The camp was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1986. The census recorded 494 people here in 1920 and 5 in 1940.
Why it's worth knowing
The name is spelled two ways, and both are right. The glacier was named in 1899 by the geologist Oscar Rohn for Robert Kennicott, a naturalist and explorer of Alaska, and Wikipedia records that the mining company took the glacier’s name with an “e” in place of the “i”, a clerical error attributed, without certainty, to the mines’ developer Stephen Birch. So the glacier and the river are Kennicott, and the town, the mines and the landmark are Kennecott. In 1915 the Alaska mines’ owners formed the Kennecott Copper Corporation, and the company carried the name into Utah, where Kennecott Utah Copper, part of Rio Tinto, runs the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City today. That mine is a different place altogether.
Then the ore ran out. Wikipedia records that a company geologist predicted the end of the high-grade ore in 1925; the Glacier mine closed in 1929, the Mother Lode at the end of July 1938, and the last three that September. The last train left Kennecott on 10 November 1938. The Park Service puts the total at 591,535 short tons of copper from 4,525,909 tons of ore, worth about $200 million in the money of 1938.
The field notes
Red paint, and one white building
The red is the first thing anyone sees. Wikipedia gives the reason as cost: red was the least expensive colour at the time. It names one exception, the hospital, the town’s only white-washed building, and records that it held the first X-ray machine in Alaska. The mill itself was built mainly between 1909 and 1923, and it worked by gravity: ore arrived at the top by tramway, the richest of it was crushed and sent straight down a chute to be sacked, and the rest was crushed, sorted and shaken apart from its waste on the floors below. An ammonia leaching plant was added in 1915 and a flotation plant in 1923, to win copper from what the first steps left behind.
After the last train
From 1939 until about 1952, Wikipedia records, the only people at Kennecott were a family of three serving as watchmen. In the late 1960s the company with rights to the land ordered the town destroyed to rid itself of liability; a few structures came down, but the job was never finished. Visitors carried off many small objects over the years, and some have since been returned. Wrangell–St. Elias National Park was established in 1980, and the Park Service acquired much of the land in the mill town in 1998. It does not own all of it: the Park Service describes privately owned lots and buildings interspersed with its own, and asks visitors to respect them.
Inside the mill, and out on the ice
The Park Service says the only way to see inside the concentration mill and the leaching plant is on a guided history tour run by its concessioner, St. Elias Alpine Guides: about two hours, several times a day in summer. The Root Glacier trail, which the Park Service rates easy to moderate, follows the edge of the Root Glacier from town with a spur to the ice itself; the mine trails to Bonanza, Jumbo and Erie are strenuous full-day hikes, by Wikipedia’s account, and local guide services lead all of them.
The mill town under snow, February 2014.
Photograph: NPS / Bryan Petrtyl · Kennecott Mill Building in Winter · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The mill seen across the glacier's rubble, below the peaks, June 2012.
Photograph: NPS / Wrangell-St. Elias · Kennecott Mill Town & Bonanza Ridge · CC BY-SA 2.0
The concentration mill above the rubble-covered Kennecott Glacier, September 2018.
Photograph: Michael F. Wacht · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
Inside the mill: a flywheel and crusher among the timbers, May 2011.
Photograph: NPS / Bryan Petrtyl · Kennecott Mill Building Inside 2 · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Ask about gravel at the rental desk before you sign anything, and drive the long road slowly enough to look at the old bridges.
- Cross the footbridge on foot even if a shuttle is waiting, and let the river be loud at you for a minute.
- Go inside the tall red mill with the guide, and look up through every floor you are allowed onto.
- Follow the trail along until the stones turn into ice. I wrote that item low on the page and had to keep turning over, because the glacier kept going.
- Some of the red buildings are people’s homes and businesses. Read the sign on a door before you try the handle, and photograph the ones that invite it.
The concentration mill. Fourteen storeys of timber frame stepped down the slope above the old railway grade, a crowd of gables, dormers, chutes and bins, where ore that came down from the mines by aerial tramway was crushed, sorted and shaken apart from its waste, and the richest of it dropped straight down a chute to be sacked for the train. Copper went through it until the mines closed in 1938. Today it is entered only on a guided tour.
Tally, in the marginA building as tall as the hill it leans on, every floor a step below the last. Halfway through the tour I stopped looking up and started looking down, which is what it had wanted all along.
Getting there
How to get there. The Park Service puts Kennecott about eight hours by car from Anchorage: the Glenn and Richardson highways, then the Edgerton Highway to Chitina, then the McCarthy Road, a narrow gravel road of 59 miles that it says takes about three hours each way. The road ends at the Kennicott River. A footbridge, maintained by the state for foot traffic only, crosses it; the town of McCarthy is half a mile beyond, and Kennecott five miles. Walk, cycle, or take one of the private shuttles that run for a fee in summer. There are two private paid car parks near the footbridge, and free day parking at the State wayside at mile 55 and at the McCarthy Road Information Station at mile 58.6. Air taxis fly daily in summer, mostly from Glennallen, Chitina or McCarthy, according to the Park Service.
When to go. Summer. The Kennecott visitor centre runs its programmes from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and the mill tours run daily through the summer. Wikipedia notes that the McCarthy Road is not maintained in winter.
What to arrange ahead. A car you are allowed to take on gravel: the Park Service warns that most major rental companies in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Valdez do not allow it, and that some discount and independent companies do, with added costs or conditions. A bed in McCarthy or Kennecott, and a place on a mill tour if you want to go inside. In the mill town, keep to the public buildings and easements; some of the red buildings are private property.
Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. The hazards are the place’s own: a long, rough gravel road with sharp turns, glacier ice, and a long way to help.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where is Kennecott, Alaska?
Kennecott is an abandoned copper-mining camp beside the Kennicott Glacier in Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. It lies five miles beyond the footbridge at the end of the McCarthy Road, which the National Park Service puts about eight hours by car from Anchorage.
Is it spelled Kennecott or Kennicott?
Both are in use. The Kennicott Glacier was named in 1899 for the naturalist Robert Kennicott, and Wikipedia records that the copper company took the name with an “e”, a clerical error attributed to its developer Stephen Birch. The glacier and river keep Kennicott; the town, mines and National Historic Landmark are Kennecott.
Is Kennecott, Alaska, the same as the Kennecott copper mine in Utah?
No. The Kennecott Copper Corporation was formed in 1915 by the owners of the Alaska mines and took the camp’s name. The company later took over Utah Copper, and Kennecott Utah Copper, part of Rio Tinto, runs the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City; the Alaska mines closed in 1938.
Why are the buildings at Kennecott red?
Wikipedia gives cost as the reason: red was the least expensive paint at the time. The National Park Service’s landmark record describes the Kennecott company town as painted red with white trim; Wikipedia names the hospital as the one white-washed building.
When was Kennecott abandoned?
In 1938. Wikipedia records that the last of Kennecott’s five copper mines closed in September 1938 and that the last train left the town on 10 November 1938. The census counted 494 people at Kennecott in 1920 and 5 in 1940.
Can you go inside the Kennecott mill?
Only on a guided tour. The National Park Service says its concessioner, St. Elias Alpine Guides, runs history tours of about two hours several times a day in summer, and that these are the only way to see inside the fourteen-storey Kennecott concentration mill and the leaching plant.
Can you drive to Kennecott?
Not all the way. The McCarthy Road, 59 miles of gravel from Chitina, ends at the Kennicott River, where a footbridge carries foot traffic only. Kennecott is five miles beyond: the National Park Service lists walking, cycling and private summer shuttles. It warns that most major Alaska rental companies do not allow their cars on gravel roads.
How much copper came out of Kennecott?
The National Park Service gives 591,535 short tons of copper from 4,525,909 tons of ore by the time the Kennecott mines closed in 1938, worth about $200 million in 1938 dollars. Wikipedia’s figure of 1.183 billion pounds of copper is the same amount in pounds.