McCarthy is a 315- mile drive from Anchorage, Alaska, and a 370-mile drive from Fairbanks, Alaska. To get to McCarthy by land, travelers must use the famous McCarthy Road from Chitina to McCarthy. snow stays year round high up in the mountains in the park. In contrast, McCarthy Alaska averages less than 30 inches of rain annually. The coast on the south side of the Chugach Mountains receives hundreds of inches of precipitation per year. There are several other national parks in the United States with Preserve in their title, including Denali National Park and Preserve. The “Preserve” aspect of the national park enables the town of McCarthy to have privately owned land and operate as an off-the-grid, Alaskan frontier town. Kennecott is located on the southern edge of the Wrangell Mountain range, and McCarthy sits just south at the toe-end of the Kennecott and Root Glaciers. McCarthy, and its adjacent historic mill town of Kennecott, are only 80 miles from the western edge of Canadian border of the Yukon Territory. Learn more about the mill town of Kennecott, Alaska. It is with the interest in outdoor recreation and adventure tourism that McCarthy as slowly come back into a small, friendly, definitely still “frontier” town! After the mines of Kennecott closed in 1938, McCarthy quickly became a ghost town.

A red light district sprung up on the banks of the creek and, to avoid prohibition-era regulations, the railroad engineers devised a special train whistle to alert the local saloons that a US Marshall was on board. McCarthy played the vice town to Kennecott’s strict company policy of no booze, brothels, or gambling. That is how the town of McCarthy, Alaska was born. When gold was found up the country in Chisana, and rumors of other mineral deposits brought squatters onto Barrett’s land, he divided some of the lands into leasable parcels. Barrett’s theory turned out to be correct and he leased a portion of his land to the railroad for their turnaround. From Cordova, the copper would be shipped to Guggenheim-owned smelters in Tacoma, Washington. Barrett theorized that his land was the best location for a locomotive turnaround for the railroad being constructed to haul the copper ore to the port town of Cordova, Alaska. A shrewd fellow named John Barrett was homesteading 296 acres along McCarthy Creek. While the wheels were turning on creating the “Copper Town” that became Kennecott, five miles down the road, the idea for McCarthy was forming. McCarthy Alaska History – Railroad & Copper Mines The Right Land for a Railroad Turnaround

Rush creek lodge mining towns