Kennicott, Alaska

Kennicott, Alaska is one of Barbara's moveable feasts.  The world's richest veins of copper were found in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains in a remote and wild part of south-central Alaska at the turn of the 20th century (early 1900s).  Removing the ore for commercial use proved to be difficult, but was funded by rich New York investors. Eventually ore extraction was deemed too expensive, despite the cash infusion.  Kennicott Copper Company and it accompanying townsite was abandoned in the early 1930s,  Barbara first visited in the early1990s and ever since that first visit, Kennicott became a special place for her.  Although there are private land holdings within Kennicott proper, the historic townsite and the mill are protected. The US National Park Service acquired the land, mineral rights, and associated holdings of the Kennecott Copper Mines in 1998.  There is still plenty to explore including the Bonanza, Erie, Mother Lode and other mine sites high in the mountains, but exploring in the mill town is limited and now governed by the National Park Service. Mill town buildings are being restored by the NPS to illustrate what and how they were when the mine was active and miners and their families lived and worked in Kennicott.