In the early days freight came up the CRNW to Chitina where it was transferred to horse-drawn freight wagons. One of the prominent stops was Copper Center.
Of the roughly 350 prospector-hopefuls who made it to Copper Center, almost all ended up leaving for Valdez following a scurvey epidemic. In the end, the "All-American Route" to the Klondike was a bust.
This turned out to be a dead-end for gold-seekers: too far to continue on to the Klondike and almost no gold in the Copper River valley. I have often referred to Copper Center as not a destination, but a brief stop on the way to somewhere else. It began as a trading post in 1896 and with the end of the All-American route, it returned to being just a trading post. Although within a few years a small government experimental farm was located here along with a Blue Fox farm and a U.S. Army telegraph station, Copper Center never became a town--or a destination.
And now we return to the Klondike.
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