Big Delta Historic District - Big Delta, Alaska
Posted by: BruceS
N 64° 09.296 W 145° 50.514
6W E 556328 N 7114791
Historic district centered on individually listed roadhouse in Big Delta, Alaska.
Waymark Code: WMAY5Z
Location: Alaska, United States
Date Posted: 03/10/2011
Views: 1
"Big Delta Historic District is located in interior Alaska, twelve miles
north of Delta Junction and ninety miles southeast of Fairbanks.
Maintaining the same boundaries as Big Delta State Historical Park, the
district consists of 10.26 acres situated on the south bank of the Tanana
River just above its confluence with the Delta River.
The historic district includes eight buildings, five sites, and five
structures possessing physical and historic integrity. These eighteen
contributing resources reflect Big Delta's importance as a crossroads for
travel and center for communications and supplies in interior Alaska. The
most prominent extant features include Rika's Roadhouse (listed in the
National Register on September 1, 1976), the barn, the McCarty Telegraph
Station storehouse, and the Alaska Road Commission (ARC) ferryman's cabin.
Restoration work, begun in the early 1980s by the State of Alaska,
maintains the historic integrity of the district. Reconstruction and
stabilization work was done to the roadhouse, barn, outbuilding, windmill,
ferryman's cabin, vehicle scales, and springhouse...
Big Delta Historic District is associated with the development of
transportation, communications, and commerce in interior Alaska, beginning
in 1904 and continuing until World War II. On the south bank of the Tanana
River and near the mouth of the Delta River the upriver limit for
sternwheel steamboats operating on the Tanana a supply post opened in
1904. It developed into a roadhouse offering food and shelter for
travellers, and in 1909 was replaced with the roadhouse standing in the
district today. The site became a significant junction along the major
overland transportation route in interior Alaska, the Valdez-Fairbanks
Trail (later named the Richardson Highway). Until a bridge was constructed
in 1943, travellers on the trail crossed the Tanana River at Big Delta on a
ferry. The Alaska Road Commission (ARC) built a cabin for the ferry
operator at the site in 1929. Telegraph service at Big Delta became
available with the establishment of the McCarty station in 1907. From 1925
to 1947 the Big Delta Post Office operated in the roadhouse. During the
period of significance, several names were associated with the area: Big
Delta, McCarty's, and Rika's. Today a historical park, the trading post
site, the McCarty Station storehouse, Rika's Roadhouse (listed in the
National Register in 1976), the Alaska Road Commission's ferryman's cabin,
and related outbuildings (including one reconstructed outbuilding and the windmill) represent Big Delta's significance in the history of
transportation, communications, and commerce in interior Alaska." - National Register Nomination form