Garner B. Hanson, manager, McKinley Park Hotel. Wayne D. Jacobs, Assistant Superintendent, McKinley Park, Fred Axford, member of the Anchorage Port Commission. W. H. Chipperfield, Territorial land commissioner Col. Carl Y. Farrell, district engineer, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, Anchorage. Phil R. Holsworth, commissioner of mines for the Territory of Hon. Wendall P. Kay, speaker of Territorial house of repre- William H. McKinley, superintendent, municipal light and George Matkin, city engineer, Anchorage. George W. Nichols, city comptroller, Anchorage. Lee Ricketts, representing North Pacific Fisheries Association. George C. Shannon, city manager, city of Anchorage.. William Stookey, president, chamber of commerce, Anchorage John M. Asplund, chairman, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Robert B. Atwood, chairman of the Alaska Statehood Committee. Pobert A. Baker, member, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce. Edgar Paul Boyko, corporation counsel, Chugach Electric Asso- ciation, Inc., and Central Alaska Power Association, Inc.; accompanied by Marlin S. Stewart, manager, Chugach Electric Association, Inc., and acting manager, Central Alaska Power Association, Inc., and Robert W. Retherford, consulting John E. Croul, Jr., manager of the Anchorage Chamber of Victor Fischer, executi, e secretary, League of Alaskan Cities....-- William J. Moran, United States Commissioner, Anchorage and A. W. Morgan, superintendent of schools, Anchorage Independent School District; accompanied by Dwight H. Newell, assistant superintendent of schools; Don E. Fridley, assistant superintend- ent of schools; and Julia H. Cato, school district tax assessor___ Alfred A. Owen, Jr., member of the Alaska Senate, Third Division, 176 281 248 Anchorage, Alaska-September 22, 1955-Continued E. Bradford Phillips, vice president, Arctic-Alaska Travel Service Reginald N. Whitman, general manager, Alaska Railroad; Elmendorf Air Base, Alaska-September 22, 1955: Statement of— Lt. Gen. J. H. Atkinson, United States Air Force Commander Anchorage, Alaska-September 23, 1955: Statement of Ralph Browne, Anchorage Joseph Hong, board of directors. Operation Statehood.. Page 201 233 288 209 295 329 George E. M, Gustafson, Anchorage 336 319 Milton Lightwood, member of the board of directors, Operation 323 Terrence G. Mackle, Anchorage. 336 Alfred A. Owen, Jr., member of the Territorial senate... 325 Ancil Payne, chairman, National Affairs Committee for Operation 317 Robert Retherford, member, board of directors, Operation State- 324 ALASKA, 1955 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1955 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRITORIAL AND INSULAR AFFAIRS McKinley Park, Alaska. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:10 p. m., in the lobby, McKinley Park Hotel, Hon. Leo W. O'Brien (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. O'BRIEN. The hearing will come to order. Will you identify yourself for the record, your full name and title, please. STATEMENTS OF RICHARD G. PRASAL, PARK NATURALIST, AND WAYNE D. JACOBS, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Mr. PRASAL. Richard G. Prasal, park naturalist. Mr. ABBOTT. What is your capacity? Mr. PRASAL. Park naturalist. Mг. ABBOTT. And you, Mr. Jacobs, are assistant superintendent? Mr. JACOBS. Yes. Wayne D. Jacobs. Mr. ABBOTT. Now the purpose of the subcommittee's stop at McKinley National Park is certainly multifold. The staff members and some of the subcommittee members have consulted with Conrad Wirth, the Director of the National Park Service, from time to time. He asked particularly that if it were possible we stop at the park and look over the hotel facility; having the advantage of consultation with the people in the area office at San Francisco, those problems were somewhat pointed up. I wonder if either or both of you gentlemen would just describe for the record and for the subcommittee members a little of the history of McKinley National Park, with particular reference to its operations, the attractions, and the visitor load as you have seen it. Then we will come, I am sure, as questions occur to the members, to some of the problems you have here. If you wish to include some comments on any proposed boundary changes, that would be quite in order. You can proceed in your own way. Mr. PRASAL. As far as the history of the area is concerned, McKinley is relatively a new park, and even the knowledge of the mountain is a relatively recent thing, for actually the mountain was not known until about the mid-1800's. The Russians at that time reported it from the seacoast. Soon prospectors started venturing toward the interior of Alaska, and, interested in gold, they did not publish too much about the great mountain. I believe in 1896 a man by the name of Dickey did see the mountain, and he thought it was the most tremendous mountain on the North American Continent. He didn't know it was to be the largest, but he believed it to be the record mountain. He was doing this prospecting around the Susitna River, he and another man, and he saw this mountain mass and decided to write about it later on. On his way back to the coast he fell in with two other miners. These men were silver champions and spoke nothing but silver. Mr. Dickey, being a gold man, got fed up with it, so he decided to name the mountain after the champion of the gold standard, William McKinley. He did so and wrote his article about it, and it appeared in the New York Times in 1897. Mr. ABBOTT. But for fate then, it might be the "William Jennings Bryan National Park?" Mr. PRASAL. That is right, and William McKinley never did see the mountain. No one actually entered what is known as McKinley Park until about a year later. Shortly after that time the Army sent an expedition in. Dr. Brooks was the leader of the expedition to the side of the mountain in 1895 at the Wonder Lake area, and about 2,000 miners entered the area at that time, and along with them a man by the name of Charles E. Sheldon, a hunter-naturalist, was here to study the Dall sheep and to collect specimens for his personal collection and for the United States National Museum. He saw the destruction going on because a great many of the miners were killing the Dall sheep and other animals. So when he returned to civilization he proposed this area be made a national park, and it took 10 years before the Congress saw fit to make it that. But on February 26, 1917, the area was made Mt. McKinley National Park. Over the various years since that time the boundary has been expanded until we now have some 3,000 square miles of park area. All of it is wilderness area, and within this area you can see not only the tallest mountain of the North American Continent, Mt. McKinley, which stands 20,300 feet high, but many types of animals that are found nowhere else in no other national parks. That is briefly our area's history. Mr. ABBOTT. Are there natural boundaries that form the park here? Mr. PRASAL. On this side, yes. We have the Nenana River boundary on the east side of the park. On the far western end, however, it is an arbitrary line. And the southern boundary follows below the summit of the main Alaska range. Its northern boundary follows along the foothills, the secondary range, as we call it. Mr. ABBOTT. I believe the statistics we saw indicate it is about 112 miles long. That would be east to west. Mr. PRASAL. Yes. Mr. ABBOTT. And from 25 to 40 miles in depth, north to south? Mr. PRASAL. Yes; that is right. Mr. ABBOTT. You mentioned boundary changes. I believe there were changes in 1922 and again in 1932 or 1933. Mr. PRASAL. I don't recall the exact date of that last one. Mr. ABBOTT. Are there presently any proposed boundary changes? Mr. PRASAL. Yes. We would like to include a section of land out near Wonder Lake to take in the foothills of the Moose Creek drainage. Mr. ABBOTT. That would be then expanding the present area within the park? Mr. PRASAL. Very slight. Mr. ABBOTT. It is not a large area? Mr. PRASAL. No. Mr. ABBOTT. Is there any thought of reducing the boundaries? Mr. PRASAL. Not at the present time. Mr. BARTLETT. If I may say so, Mr. Chairman, I have a bill in designed to bring about some slight reduction, but there has been no report on it yet. Mr. ABBOTT. Where would they be? Mr. BARTLETT. This very area would be one of them. Mr. ABBOTT. Is the Alaska Railroad as it crosses the southern, boundary and the northern boundary entirely within the park, that is, between those two points? Mr. PRASAL. Yes, it is. Mr. ABBOTT. And that is technically not park ground? Mr. PRASAL. They have their own right-of-way and maintain that area as their own. Mr. ABBOTT. Could you background a little? Is this hotel the facility in the park? Mr. PRASAL. This is the only one available. Mr. ABBOTT. Could you describe the history of the hotel here briefly? Mr. PRASAL. I do not feel qualified to go into that end of it. Mr. JACOBS. I would like to have Mr. Hanson describe that. I believe he is best qualified. Mr. ABBOTT. Would you identify yourself, please? STATEMENT OF GARNER B. HANSON, MANAGER, MCKINLEY PARK HOTEL Mr. HANSON. My name is Garner B. Hanson. My capacity here in McKinley is manager of the McKinley Park Hotel. I represent the National Park Concessions, Inc., as executive assistant to the president and general manager. I can't give you too much of the background of the hotel here. It was completed in 1939, made available to the public. The north wing of the hotel was the last for completion. Mr. ABBOTT. Was it constructed by or under the supervision of the National Park Service? Mr. HANSON. It was constructed, it is my understanding, under the supervision of the Alaska Railroad with the cooperation of the National Park Service. Both branches, I think, were connected in the construction. Mr. ABBOTT. Was it constructed as a facility for the Alaska Railroad or for the national parks? Mr. HANSON. It was constructed at that time, it is my understanding, for the Alaska Railroad, which would also be available to the National Park Service visitors in the area. Mrs. GREEN. It was not a WPA project? Mr. HANSON. I can't answer that. Mr. BARTLETT. No, it was not. Mr. ABBOTT. Just a special project of the Alaska Railroad? |