Ordinary Men Build A Legendary Road
Black Engineers & The ALCAN Highway
African American, Company F, Alaska Highway. Born: 7 Dec 1917, Crystal Springs, Mississippi. Died: 16 May 2002, Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi. Enlisted:15 Apr 1941 at Camp Shelby, MS and discharged on 22 November 1945. Education: grammar school. Civil Occupation: stock clerk, 1940 census lists him as a porter for a retail dry goods store. His father…
Teslin Lake is 78 miles long and about 3 miles wide. While the road that would access Morley Bay was under construction, sternwheelers pushed barges loaded with supplies and equipment for the road builders up the Lake to Morley Bay.
The 93rd Engineers arrived June 1942 and crossed the Tagish River, 1275 feet, on a pontoon ferry. Tagish, a small village, was the traditional home of the Carcross/Tagish Tlingits. It is 23 miles southeast of Carcross. The Tagish river, known to the Tlingits as the Six Mile River, was a popular fishing hole for the soldiers. One soldier attached a hook to a string, tied the string to his rifle barrel and caught a trophy size trout. Lieutenants Timberlake and Bonaparte caught four trout for dinner. According to Lt. Tim, one weighed 19 pounds. It was a welcome change from Spam, Vienna Sausage or Chili.
The Corps of Engineers appropriated the White Pass and Yukon Railroad as a critical link between the harbor at Skagway and the interior. The 770th Railway Battalion ran it for them. The WP & YT ran a daily train, the 770th ran 30 daily trains.
A “spot in the road”, Carcross housed 100 Tlingit Natives, the Watson Trading post, a railroad depot, and Caribou Hotel and Bar. Over 10,000 soldiers would pass through their little village on their way to build the highway. In May of 1942, 1200 segegated soldiers of the 93rd arrived. The first white man that ten year old Millie Jones had ever seen was black. By mid-June, most of the 93rd was gone. One hundred and thirty troops remained to guard the bridge and help unload equipment at the depot. The 340th, a white battalion, passed through on their way to Teslin River.
A city of 600 souls swelled to 3,600 in April of 1942 when the US Army and the 93rd Engineers occupied their harbor, buildings and airfield for the Alaska Highway Project. The origin of the path from the sea to the interior and central portion of the Alaska Highway Project, Skagway became a major military troop and supply transport center.
African American, Alaska Highway, A Company. Born: unk Died: unk He was Joseph Prejean’s NCO. He lived in Morgan City, Louisiana.
The armed services of the United States expanded as fast as possible during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Few among the country’s civilian and military leaders doubted that war was imminent. Among thousands and then tens of thousands of new recruits who poured into the Army were thousands of black men, and these segregated…
In early 1942 the United States found itself at war with the Empire of Japan. Its leaders looked north and panicked. The Aleutian island chain, extending in a broad arc across the North Pacific from the remote territory of Alaska almost to Japan’s Kurile Islands, offered the Japanese an obvious path to North America. Outpost…
