Denali Depot
ARR Denali Park Depot | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | ||||||||||||||||
| General information | ||||||||||||||||
| Location | Mile 1.25 Denali National Park Road Denali Park, AK 99755 | |||||||||||||||
| Owned by | Alaska Railroad | |||||||||||||||
| Platforms | 1 side platform | |||||||||||||||
| Tracks | 1 | |||||||||||||||
| Services | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
 | This article or section is in a state of significant expansion or restructuring. You are welcome to assist in its construction by editing it as well. This template was placed by Reywas92 (talk · contribs). If this article or section has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. If you are the editor who added this template and you are actively editing, please be sure to replace this template with {{in use}} during the active editing session. Click on the link for template parameters to use.
This article was last edited by Reywas92 (talk | contribs) 11 hours ago. (Update timer) |
Denali Park Depot (formerly McKinley Park Station) is a seasonal passenger railroad station located within Denali National Park. It is adjacent to the visitor center and McKinley National Park Airport located in Denali Park. The station offers service for the Alaska Railroad's Denali Star route between mid-May and Mid-September and the Aurora Winter Train in winter as a flag stop.[1][2]
Development of the area where the station would be began in 1914 as gold prospectors passed through going north. The Alaska Engineering Commission began work on the railroad to Fairbanks soon thereafter, completing it in 1923.[3][4] The railroad was the only way to reach the national park, which was established in 1917, and the community known as McKinley Station[5] until the Denali Highway was completed in 1957.[6] The first depot was a converted rail box car and was also the post office.[4][7] A building was later constructed to be the train depot. The Alaska Road Commission used the depot to receive and stage materials for the 1923–1938 construction of the 90-mile Park Road to Kantishna. The park boundary was expanded in 1932 to include the depot and park headquarters. Passengers would stay at the nearby McKinley Park Hotel from its completion in 1939 until it burned down in 1972, when railroad cars were converted into hotel rooms.[4]
A modern depot was built in 1988, and it was expanded in 2003 to improve facilities at a cost of about $6 million.[8][9]
In 1995, 128,000 visitors to Denali National Park arrived by train, about a quarter of all visitors.[10]
President Warren G. Harding became the only sitting president to visit the national park when he stopped at the station in July 1923.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ "Depot Locations". Alaska Railroad. Archived from the original on 2015-12-30. Retrieved 2020-12-26.
- ^ "Train Schedules". Alaska Railroad. Retrieved 2025-04-01.
- ^ a b "Alaska's Golden Spike". National Park Service. Retrieved 2025-04-01.
- ^ a b c Bryant, Jane (2011). "Snapshots from the Past" (PDF). National Park Service.
- ^ Walker, Tom (2009). McKinley Station: People of the Pioneer Park. Pictorial Histories Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-57510-145-3.
- ^ "Alaska Railroad's Denali Depot (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2025-04-01.
- ^ Sherwonit, Bill (2013-04-11). Denali National Park: The Complete Visitors Guide to the Mountain, Wildlife, and Year-Round Outdoor Activities. Mountaineers Books. ISBN 978-1-59485-714-0.
- ^ "Alaska Railroad Corportation Historic Timeline" (PDF). Alaska Railroad. May 2023.
- ^ Hopkins, Kyle (April 7, 2003). "Railroad Projects Aim for Efficiency". Fairbanks Daily News Miner.
- ^ Denali National Park (N.P.) and Reserve, Entrance Area and Road Corridor Development Concept Plan: Environmental Impact Statement. 1997.
External links
[edit]- Alaska Railroad home page at the Library of Congress Web Archives (archived 2009-05-01)
63°43′50″N 148°54′49″W / 63.7306°N 148.9136°W
  | This Alaska train station-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This article about a location in the Denali Borough, Alaska is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |