Haunted America: The Ghosts of the Old Kennecott Copper Railroad in Chitina, Alaska

The haunted village of Chitina, Alaska is located just outside the boundary of the western side of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in the county of Valdez-Cordova. The small community is nestled along the west bank of the Copper River where despite a past history of disease and conflicts the town has had a rise in population since the late 1800's, and it has been home to Athabaskan people for centuries. A mass arrival of people looking to get rich from copper steadily moved into the village during the early 1900's which gave reason for better options for traveling to the small community other than a railway system. Beginning in 1945, workers labored around the clock converting the CR&NW railroad line into a highway until a massive earthquake ceased the construction in 1964, ironically on a Good Friday.

Makeshift homes were built almost overnight to accommodate the miners and their families on parcels running along the tracks from Cordova to Chitina, and from McCarthy to Kennecott. By 1938 the copper miners all but emptied the rich land of its copper content, the Northwestern Railway closed, and the tracks were eventually covered with dirt, leaving no trace of a track that was once well traveled. The village became nothing more than a ghost town, but the local fishermen knew that salmon was abundant and continued to scoop up the delectable fish with dipnets, while out-of towners soon became a regular source that boosted the local population in spurts during the summer when the salmon are spawning.

The Kennecott Trail is now paved, but it took many years to complete as construction workers refused to work under conditions where ghosts and spirits walked around as if they were full bodied humans. Their tools would get misplaced by prankster spirits and disembodied voices would scare them into a panicked frenzy as they could not concentrate when the phantom voices talked non-stop. McCarthy Road is now paved and is the main passageway into the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park which happens to be the largest park in the United States.

The Copper River Trails ramble on and purges through some of Alaska's most beautiful scenic countryside. Many of the older more established trails have historical significance that can be linked back to where the miners once walked everyday looking for riches, and it is on these same trails that some of the more active spirits dwell and the laughter of ghost children can be heard in what sounds like a playground at times. The nearby forest is often a hotbed for paranormal activity with apparitions walking through the thick wooded area both day and night, however the light casted by the full moon seems to allow for better viewing of these entities that simply refuse to rest and for whatever reason they are typically witnessed by travelers walking along McCarthy Road.

Visitors walking or passing through the remote area of where the railroad tracks once would have been located have often asked the locals about the lonely and unattended to tombstones that appear sporadically throughout the woods. The citizens of Chitina have heard this tale before, hundreds of times, but they have no answer because they know that no such grave markers exist or ever have to their knowledge, and that these unaware visitors have just witnessed something that is purely mind boggling and unexplainable. Pictures of the graves usually show no sign of any type of death markers, they only show the beautiful surrounding landscape, and attempts to prove the existence of the headstones to the locals by the visiting tourist's only produce evidence that the graves are nowhere to be found just like the locals stated. Some of the luckier visitors have managed to catch images of small children and miners on film, but nobody is able to identify the people in the pictures when they are shown to the residents of Chitina.

Visitors to Chitina will be delighted to know that Gilpatrick's Hotel Chitina, Inc. has been fully restored to its grandeur of 1914, and there is a casual restaurant that offers freshly caught salmon along with all of the fixings served in courses. The humble sleeping quarters is located in the Historic District of downtown Chitina, giving visitors full access to tour the local haunts by foot. History buffs can dig deep by visiting the historical landmark known by the locals as the Edward S. Orr stagecoach building. Ghost hunters can visit Kennicott and McCarthy and take in the spectacular views of the Kuskulana Bridge and the Gilahina Trestle, Alaska's famous bridge to nowhere. For more information go to: http://hotelchitina.com/

Sources:

http://www.hauntedhovel.com/hauntedplacesinalaska.html

http://www.theparanormalsociety.org/library/haunted-locations/106-haunted-locations-by-state/280-alaska-haunted-locations

http://www.skolaiimages.com/journal/2009/11/25/bridge-to-nowhere-gilahina-trestle-wrangell-st-elias-national-park/

http://www.yourghoststories.com/ghost-stories-usstates.php?state=AK&page=1

http://nightwatchers.myfastforum.org/sutra320.php