Chickaloon Bunkhouse

Chickaloon Bunkhouse. . , In 1899 the U.S. Army documented coal along the Chickaloon River and in 1916 the area was set aside by the United States Secretary of the Interior as a designated coal-mining area. The town of Chickaloon sprang up peopled with miners, Navy personnel, and Ahtna Hwt'aene' (Peoples) including Nay'dini'aa Na' (Chickaloon Native Village). By 1918, construction completed at the Chickaloon town site included 28 frame and log buildings. One of the buildings was the Chickaloon Bunkhouse. In 1921, Chickaloon had a power plant, a mess hall, dorms for 100 men, cottages, a large school house, two roadhouses and stores. Katie Wade, a Nay'dini'aa Na' Tribal citizen born in Chickaloon in 1922, recalled her mother's description of the Chickaloon town site: "Mama said there was a hospital there, [a] school, all kinds of buildings. They had a town site where Navy personnel lived... they said the government owned the ones on top of the hill and that's where this little one [the bunkhouse] was.", Then in 1922 mining operations at Chickaloon ended abruptly. The Navy had turned to oil to power its ships. People moved away and in 1928 the buildings were dismantled and moved elsewhere. The Chickaloon Bunkhouse was one of the buildings moved. As Katie Wade recalls: "Seemed to me like they tore it all down, board by board. My dad hauled it down with his horses and wagons, down to the bottom of the [Chickaloon] hill where the train was... They said they were going to set them up along the railroad tracks.... at [the] Moose Creek [town site]." In 1933 the railroad tracks between Chickaloon and Sutton were torn up., This bunkhouse was used by both the railroad section crews and road construction crews while at the Moose Creek town site. From 8 to 14 men would live in it at any one time. In the winter it was heated with a coal pot-bellied stove. Katie Wade's father, husband, brother-in-law, brother and uncle had all lived in the bunkhouse while it was at Moose Creek. About 1954, Katie and Richard "Tiny" Wade purchased the building from the railroad and dragged it with a hand winch and small bulldozer to their property, about one mile from Moose Creek. Katie's Aunt Mary Nickolai Goodlataw Shaginoff and her sons lived in the house for many years on Katie and Tiny's property., In the early 1990's the bunkhouse was sold to Eileen Haines of Sutton and Eileen donated the bunkhouse to the Alpine Historical Society. It was moved to its final resting place on the grounds of the Alpine Historical Park where it was renovated.