The History of the Copper Center Agricultural Experiment Station, 1903-1908
J.W. Neal with his wife and daughter. Photo courtesy of Agricultural Experiment Station Collection, UAF Rasmuson Library Archives, Accession #68-4-1212
Andrew Carlson - Feature Columnist
On the left-hand side of the road of the Old Richardson Highway (when driving south towards Copper Center), there is a sign beside a pull-out describing an agricultural experiment station that once existed there. The sign is located between Milepost 106.1 and the post office. The sign does not mention why the experiment station in Copper Center officially started in 1903, or why the experiment station was closed in 1908.
The history behind the Copper Center agricultural experiment station goes back to 1898 when the federal government decided agricultural experiment stations should be established across Alaska and funds to start them were provided through the federal Hatch Act of 1887.
Wheat field at Gov[ernment] Exp[erimental] Sta[tion], Copper Center, Alaska.
Photo courtesy of Alaska's Digital Archives, Anchorage Museum of Art & History
Dr. Charles Christian Georgeson was placed in charge of these stations and oversaw their construction and management. The first agricultural experiment station Georgeson established was in Sitka (1898) and then six more stations followed at Kodiak (1898), Kenai (1899), Rampart (1900), Copper Center (1903), Fairbanks (1906), and lastly Matanuska (1915). Georgeson noted that the Copper Center station might be “the most favorable locality for agri- culture in all Alaska.”
Georgeson was optimistic about Copper Center’s agricultural experiment station and placed J.W. Neal as the superintendent in charge there. However, three problems brought the agricultural experiment station in Copper Center to an early end.
Dr. Georgeson. Photo courtesy of Agricultural Experiment Station Photo Collection, UAF Rasmuson Library Archives, Accession #68-4-1163
The first problem was that the Copper Center station was too expensive to run since its supplies had to be hauled over the mountains from Valdez. The second problem was that the construction on the railroad, which began in 1908, was started 40 miles away from Copper Center, presenting future transportation difficulties for getting produce from Copper Center out to the copper mines.
A third problem was that the grain crops grown at the Copper Center experiment station were not as successful as grain crops found to be grown elsewhere, such as the grain crops that were grown further north at the experiment stations of Rampart and Fairbanks.
These three issues culminated in Copper Center’s agricultural experiment station being closed down permanently in the winter of 1908. Georgeson requested that Neal take the superintendent job at the Fairbanks agricultural experiment station. Georgeson let Neal know that Neal and his family would like it more in Fairbanks, since it was not as remote as Copper Center.
Neal readily accepted Georgeson’s offer. Copper Center’s agricultural equipment was then shipped to Fairbanks. The equipment consisted of two grain drills, a disk and smooth harrow, one plow, a blacksmith outfit, carpenter and hand tools, a fanning mill, and a wagon loaded with miscellaneous items.
Although the Copper Center agricultural experiment station was closed down 115 years ago, there is still agricultural activity in the Copper Valley. The farming legacy can still be observed as one drives down the Edgerton Highway. It appears Dr. Georgeson’s statement, “the most favorable locality for agriculture in all Alaska” was not completely unfounded
Carlson has published articles on Alaska’s agricultural history in the following peer-reviewed history journals: Alaska History, Journal of the West, and Montana The
Magazine of Western History, as well as in The Short Rows of the Agricultural History Society.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Carlson
Further reading:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Annual Report of Alaska Agricultural Experiment Stations for 1901, C.C. Georgeson (Washington, D.C.: GPD, 1902)
Rochelle Pigors, “Throw All Experiments to the Winds: Practical Farming and the Fairbanks Experiment Station, 1907-1915” (Senior Thesis, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1996)
