Glenn Highway
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox road The Glenn Highway (part of Alaska Route 1) is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, extending Template:Convert from Anchorage near Merrill Field to Glennallen on the Richardson Highway. The Tok Cut-Off is often considered part of the Glenn Highway, for a total length of Template:Convert.
Route description
The longest stretch of freeway in Alaska runs mostly along the Glenn Highway, beginning in north Anchorage, continuing onto the Parks Highway at the interchange of the two roads, and ending in the city limits of Wasilla, for a total of approximately 38 miles (61 km). This Template:Convert portion of the Glenn Highway is the only road access to Anchorage for most of the state (with the exception of the Kenai Peninsula on the Seward Highway), and as such is the main traffic corridor for Anchorage's suburbs in the Chugiak-Eagle River and Mat-Su areas. The highest point on the highway is Template:Convert at Eureka Summit, which sits on the divide between the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges.<ref>The Milepost, 59th edition, pg. 322, Template:ISBN</ref>
History
The highway originated as the Palmer Road in the 1930s, to reach the agricultural colony at Palmer. During World War II it was completed to Glennallen as part of a massive program of military road and base building that also resulted in the Alaska Highway,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and connected Anchorage to the continental highway system.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
It is named for Captain Edwin Glenn (1857–1926), leader of an 1898 U.S. Army expedition to find an Alaska route to the Klondike gold fields<ref>Alaska Yukon Place Names, James W. Phillips author, University of Washington Press (1973)</ref> (the eventual Richardson Highway). The highway was paved in the 1950s.
Paleontology
The "Talkeetna Mountains Hadrosaur" specimen was discovered in 1994 in a quarry being excavated for road material.<ref name="mata-hadro-intro-220" /> That fall, excavation began, and was resumed in the summer of 1996.<ref name="mata-hadro-intro-220" /> The quarry is near the Glenn Highway, approximately 150 miles northeast of Anchorage.<ref name="mata-hadro-location-220" /> This specimen was the first associated skeleton of an individual dinosaur discovered in all of Alaska.<ref name="mata-hadro-abs-219" />
Interstate Highway System
Template:See also Template:Infobox road small Glenn Highway is part of the unsigned part of the Interstate Highway System as Interstate A-1.<ref>Federal Highway Administration, National Highway System Viewer Template:Webarchive. Retrieved August 2007.</ref><ref>Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Routes Template:Webarchive, April 2006</ref>
Major intersections
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Gallery
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The Glenn Highway on the right side of the Matanuska River and Kings Mountain at mile 76 (km 123).
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Matanuska Glacier seen from the Glenn Highway at mile 102 (km 164)
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Gunsight Mountain and the Glenn Highway near mile 129 (km 208)
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Mount Drum and the Glenn Highway near mile 170 (km 274)
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Granite Peak from Glenn Highway
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Mount Wickersham and Matanuska Glacier from mile 101 of the highway
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Amulet Peak and Matanuska River at Mile 94
Footnotes
References
- Pasch, A. D., K. C. May. 2001. Taphonomy and paleoenvironment of hadrosaur (Dinosauria) from the Matanuska Formation (Turonian) in South-Central Alaska. In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life. Ed.s Tanke, D. H., Carpenter, K., Skrepnick, M. W. Indiana University Press. Pages 219–236.