Fairbanks: History

Fairbanks: History

Discovery of Gold Brings Prospectors, Settlers

Fairbanks was founded accidentally in 1901 by CaptainE. T. Barnette. On his way to set up a trading post on the Tanana River, Barnette was instead stranded on the Chena River when the riverboat in which he was traveling was forced to turn back. As he was making plans to move his supplies to a more profitable location, gold was discovered about 12 miles away, near Fox. An Italian prospector, Felix Pedro, is credited with having made the discovery on July 22, 1902. Every year on that date, Fairbanks commemorates the gold strike with the Golden Days celebration.

During the ensuing gold rush, Barnette's trading post became the center of activity for prospectors who swarmed into the area. A settlement grew up and was named for Senator Charles Fairbanks of Indiana who served as vice president under Theodore Roosevelt from 1905-1909; the town was incorporated in 1903. Barnette was elected the first mayor of Fairbanks. He is credited with establishing telephone service, fire protection, sanitation ordinances, electricity and steam heat, but he soon fell into disfavor as a result of his involvement in a bank failure that caused many citizens to lose their savings.

Oil and Military Buildup Replace Gold as Economic Pillars

By 1910 the population of Fairbanks grew to 3,541 people, although more than 6,000 miners lived and worked their claims north of town. During World War I, however, gold activity declined and the population of the town decreased. The start of the construction of the Alaska Railroad brought another boom period, so that by 1930 the population was restored to about half of its previous level.

In 1922 the Alaska Territorial legislature accepted lands granted by the United States Congress, creating the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, which grew into the University of Alaska Fairbanks. During World War II the Alaska Highway was constructed as part of the military buildup, and Fairbanks experienced yet another boom period when thousands of military personnel were located at nearby Eielson Air Force Base and Ladd Field (now Fort Wainwright). Military personnel in the area grew from 10 in 1940 to 5,419 in 1950. Following the war, the Fairbanks population again declined, but during the following decade the community experienced gradual growth.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough was established on January 1, 1964, by an act of the Alaska State Legislature. The Borough includes the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole and encompasses 7,361 square miles (4.7 million acres), making it the fourth largest borough in the state.

In August 1967, just weeks before the expected winter freeze-up, the city was swept by a flood that inundated 95 percent of its residences and left the city under eight feet of water. Fairbanks recovered from the extensive damage, and with the discovery in 1968 of oil on the north slope of the Brooks Mountain Range, the city entered a new era of expansion.

Construction of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline triggered one of the city's largest booms, and the population is estimated to have reached 70,000 persons in 1977. With the completion of the pipeline construction, the community's economy went into a serious decline, but it soon recovered with the injection of state revenues in the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, however, crude oil prices had dropped and Alaska slipped into a severe recession, with Fairbanks experiencing the most abrupt decline in the state. Since then the local economy has recovered somewhat, but high unemployment rates continued into the new millennium.

Today, Fairbanks is a popular tourist destination; visitors are attracted to its boundless opportunities for outdoor adventure and its pioneer spirit still reflected in its gold mines, saloons and frontier towns.

Historical Information: Fairbanks Historic Preservation Foundation, telephone (907)456-8848; Tanana Yukon Historical Society, telephone (907)455-8947