Lieutenant Wilds P. Richardson was instrumental in restoring law and order during the gold rush and importing reindeer to Alaska to feed starving miners. He built Fort William H. Seward, which later became Chilkoot Barracks, surveyed the Richardson trail from Valdez to Fairbanks, and headed the Alaska Road Commission. He retired as a Brigadier General in 1920.

The Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS) was a highly significant factor in the early development of Alaska. It was a vast undertaking, which connected the military posts in Alaska with the United States. It also functioned as a commercial telegraph and cable connection to the States.

The WAMCAT telegraph station in Valdez-[the center building]-as it looked in 1915 when Valdez was the coastal terminus of both the telegraph line and the Richardson Trail.

The Cordova Cable Office in 1908. Cordova was a fishing center and the headquarters of the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad serving the vast Kennicott copper interests.

Fort Egbert, at Eagle - near the Canadian border, was the eastern terminus of the telegraph line and an important mining, trading and customs center. It was manned by members of Company L, 7th Infantry, in June 1899.

The men of Company L, 7th Infantry mustered in front of a new log building at Fort Egbert on March 31, 1900.

Lieutenant William "Billy" Mitchell, U.S. Army Signal Corps, supervised construction of the northern section of the telegraph line. He went on to become a noted military strategist and proponent of air power. He said Alaska was the key to the North Pacific. Controversy lost him the rank of Brigadier General and suspension from the service. In 1942 the United States Senate raised him posthumously to Major General.

Alternate freezing and thawing cause conventional telegraph poles to lean and fall. Tripods were typical of the WAMCATS line in the tundra country between Broad Pass and Fairbanks in 1948.

A submarine cable across Norton Sound did not survive the ice movement. An improvised wireless link connected Fort St. Michael with Port Safety, where the land line continued 24 miles to Nome. [This sign commemorates this very early success with wireless in 1903.]

This is the farthest west and farthest north point of the telegraph line - Fort Davis near Nome in 1905.