Glenn Highway
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Route information | |
| Length: | 189 mi (304 km) |
| Major junctions | |
| West end: | Anchorage near Merrill Field |
| East end: |   Alaska Routes 1/4 (Richardson Highway) in Glennallen |
| Highway system | |
The Glenn Highway (part of Alaska Route 1) is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, extending 189 miles (301 km) from Anchorage near Merrill Field to Glennallen on the Richardson Highway. The Tok Cut-Off is often considered part of the Glenn Highway, for a total length of 328 miles (528 km).[1]
The highway originated as the Palmer Road in the 1930s, to reach the agricultural colony at Palmer. During World War II it was completed to Glennallen as part of a massive program of military road and base building that also resulted in the Alaska Highway,[2] and connected Anchorage to the continental highway system.[3]
It is named for Captain Edwin Glenn, leader of an 1898 U.S. Army expedition to find an Alaska route to the Klondike gold fields[citation needed] (the eventual Richardson Highway). The highway was paved in the 1950s.
The longest stretch of freeway in Alaska runs mostly along the Glenn Highway, beginning in north Anchorage, continuing onto the Parks Highway at the interchange of the two roads, and ending in the city limits of Wasilla, for a total of approximately 38 miles (61 km). This 38-mile (61 km) portion of the Glenn Highway is the only road access to Anchorage for most of the state (with the exception of the Kenai Peninsula on the Seward Highway), and as such is the main traffic corridor for Anchorage's suburbs in the Chugiak-Eagle River and Mat-Su areas. The highest point on the highway is 3,332 feet (1,016 m) at Eureka Summit, which sits on the divide between the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges.[4]
Contents |
[edit] Towns and places along the Glenn Highway
- Anchorage, mile 0 (km 0)
- Fort Richardson, mile 7 (km 12)
- Eagle River, mile 13 (km 22)
- Chugiak, mile 21 (km 34)
- Eklutna, mile 26 (km 42)
- Palmer, mile 42 (km 68)
- Sutton, mile 61 (km 98)
- Chickaloon, mile 76 (km 123)
- Matanuska Glacier, mile 102 (km 164)
- Lake Louise, mile 159 (km 256)
- Glennallen, mile 187 (km 301)
[edit] Paleontology
The "Talkeetna Mountains Hadrosaur" specimen was discovered in 1994 in a quarry being excavated for road material.[5] That fall, excavation began, and was resumed in the summer of 1996.[5] The quarry is near the Glenn Highway, approximately 150 miles northeast of Anchorage.[6] This was the first occurrence of a hadrosaur in south-central Alaska, a new high-latitude source of dinosaur fossils, one out of only four vertebrate fossils from the entire Wrangellia Composite Terrane, and the first associated skeleton of an individual dinosaur in Alaska.[7]
[edit] Gallery
-
The Glenn Highway freeway as it passes through Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson at mile 6 (km 10). A portion of the Chugach Mountains adjacent to the Eagle River valley are in the background.
-
This view from the Glenn Highway shows the highway alongside the Matanuska River at mile 76 (km 123).
-
Matanuska Glacier seen from the Glenn Highway at mile 102 (km 164)
-
Gunsight Mountain and the Glenn Highway near mile 129 (km 208)
-
Mount Drum and the Glenn Highway near mile 170 (km 274)
-
Mount Drum and the Glenn Highway in 1974, at the future Trans-Alaska Pipeline crossing (marked by two adjacent stakes visible on the south side of the road).
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ http://milepost.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=316&Itemid=376
- ^ http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=230
- ^ http://www.alaska101.com/exploreAlaska/glennh/alaska_travel_glennh.htm
- ^ The Milepost, 59th edition, pg. 322, ISBN#9-781892-15421
- ^ a b "Introduction," in Pasche and May (2001); page 220.
- ^ "Location and Geologic Setting," in Pasche and May (2001); page 220.
- ^ "Abstract," in Pasche and May (2001); page 219.
[edit] References
- Pasch, A. D., K. C. May. 2001. Taphonomy and paleoenvironment of hadrosaur (Dinosauria) from the Matanuska Formation (Turonian) in South-Central Alaska. In: Mesozioc Vertebrate Life. Ed.s Tanke, D. H., Carpenter, K., Skrepnick, M. W. Indiana University Press. Pages 219-236.
[edit] External links
Media related to Glenn Highway at Wikimedia Commons
