Kennecott Ghost Town Walking Tour Points

Although most of Ken­necot­t’s food was import­ed, the Dairy Barn was used to keep small cows that pro­vid­ed milk for the town. There was also a small com­mu­ni­ty gar­den out­side where some fruits and veg­eta­bles were grown. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Owned and oper­at­ed by the Nation­al Park Ser­vice, this hall often hosts speak­ers, movies, potlucks, yoga, music, wed­dings, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty events. You’ll like­ly see fly­ers around town about these events, which are usu­al­ly held for no charge (though they may request dona­tions). If there is some­thing going on dur­ing your vis­it to town, don’t be shy; it’s worth your while to find out what’s hap­pen­ing. And check in at the NPS vis­i­tor cen­ter to see  ...more

The Ken­necott School House was used to teach first through eigth grade class­es, as well as to hold church ser­vices. High school stu­dents were sent to Cor­dovia or Seat­tle and board­ed with fam­i­ly or friends. The school’s recre­ation­al facil­i­ties were con­sid­ered very pro­gres­sive at the time. There was a hand­ball court and a base­ball dia­mond that was to flood­ed in the win­ter and turned into an ice skat­ing rink. Source: McCarthy Kennicott…  ...more

The orig­i­nal Staff Five-plex build­ing that was con­struct­ed in 1916 burn­down in 1983. As the name sug­gests, it was a five town­house com­plex used to house man­age­ment fam­i­lies and cou­ples. In 1987 it was rebuilt as Ken­necott Glac­i­er Lodge. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum

These cot­tages were used to house man­age­ment and a few long-term employ­ees who were allowed to bring their fam­i­lies with them to Ken­necott. The cot­tages on what is now called Silk Stock­ing Row were con­sid­ered very lux­u­ri­ous at the time because they fea­tured indoor plumb­ing. Almost all the cot­tages are now pri­vate­ly owned. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

West Bunkhouse was built in 1917, mak­ing it Ken­necot­t’s third bunkhouse. Wash­ing and lock­ers were locat­ed on the first floor, and sleep­ing quar­ters were on the upper lev­els. All the Ken­necott bunkhous­es had cook­ing, din­ing, and recre­ation­al facil­i­ties. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Even though the Ken­necott Cor­po­ra­tion was built on the edge of a glac­i­er, they used the most advanced refrig­er­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy avail­able. Ammo­nia cool­ing and a mechan­i­cal­ly cooled meat lock­er were used to keep meat and oth­er per­ish­ables fresh for the min­ing town. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Ken­necot­t’s com­pa­ny store car­ried every­thing res­i­dence would need, from dyna­mite to christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions and every­thing inbe­tween. The Ken­necott Post Office was locat­ed in a cor­ner of the store. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Today, only ruins remain of Ken­necot­t’s sawmill and car­pen­try shop. This build­ing was con­struct­ed with local spruce in 1908, before the arrival of the rail­road. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

The Ken­necott Train Depot was the ter­mi­nus for the Cop­per Riv­er & North­west­ern Rail­road. Nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and haz­ards along the train route often pre­vent­ed the rail­road from run­ning. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Orig­i­nal­ly, Nation­al Creek Bunkhouse was used as a bunkhouse as one would assume. Lat­er on, parts of the bunkhouse were used as a place to bot­tle dairy and as a tem­po­rary den­tist’s office. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

The Assay Office was built in 1910 and served as the labra­to­ry where ore from the mines was test­ed to deter­mine it’s puri­ty. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

The major­i­ty of the work­ers in the Ken­necott mines and mill were tem­po­rary. Most worked here for 6 months, 7 days a week. In the bunkhous­es, two to four men shared a room. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

The Ken­necott Hos­pi­tal was typ­i­cal­ly staffed by one doc­tor and three nurs­es. Peo­ple from all over the Cop­per Riv­er Val­ley, not just Ken­necott, were treat­ed here. This small hos­pi­tal was the home of Alaska’s first x‑ray machine. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

The log cab­in sec­tion of Gen­er­al Man­agers Office was the first per­ma­nent build­ing in Ken­necott. Addi­tions were added to pro­vide more space for the office, safe, pay­roll, and draft­ing. There use to be a staff house next door that was used to house female employ­ees and unmar­ried man­age­ment. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Ken­necot­t’s Ammo­nia Leach­ing Plant was built in 1916 and was used to process the low­er grade cop­per from the mines. A chemist named E.T. Stan­nard invent­ed this advanced min­ing tech­nol­o­gy, and lat­er became CEO of the Ken­necott Cor­po­ra­tion. In 1923, a floata­tion plant was added to the build­ing where the ​“fines”, ore less than 2 mm in diam­e­ter, were processed. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Con­struc­tion of this 14-sto­ry state-of-the-art mill began in 1908 and took 10 years to com­plete. Tramways con­nect­ed the 5 Ken­necott mines to this mill, trans­port­ing up to 1,200 tons of ore every day. At the mill, the ore was processed using advanced tech­nol­o­gy to extract the cop­per. Most of the machi­nary is still intact today. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

Along with some oth­er build­ings, the Nation­al Park Ser­vice has fin­ished ren­o­vat­ing the Pow­er Plant, and has opened it up for pub­lic view­ing. It makes for an inter­est­ing tour. It was built in 1924 after a fire destroyed the orig­i­nal pow­er house. The plant once pro­duced enough steam-gen­er­at­ed elec­tric­i­ty to run the mines up in the moun­tains as well as the entire town, includ­ing heat­ing the build­ings and even melt­ing snow off the sidewalks.…  ...more

The Machine Shop at Ken­necott Mines was used to house large inven­to­ries of spare equip­ment so that any bro­ken machi­nary at the mines or mill could quick­ly be replaced. Equip­ment that need­ed to be repaired was then sent to the Machine Shop. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum 

The Elec­tri­cal Shop was used as a work­space for Ken­necot­t’s elec­tri­ans, and as stor­age space for spare elec­tri­cal parts. Source: McCarthy Ken­ni­cott His­tor­i­cal Museum