This work is dedicated to the people of Fairbanks-past, present and future,
and in memory of the Northern Commercial Company Building
1903 - 1992

We sped down the long southern slope, through a beautiful forest of silver birch, out upon a flat plain, over a slough, across an island, through a heavy forest of spruce, and, from the north bank of the Chena river, the new Metropolis of the Tanana came into view on the opposite shore.

A rough log structure, with spread-eagle wings looked like a disreputable pig sty, but was in fact, Barnette's trading post, the only mercantile establishment in the new camp. A hundred yards up the stream, also facing the river, a half-finished two-story log building without doors or windows bore the home-made sign on white cloth,--"Fairbanks Hotel."

Two other small log cabins marked, "Pioneer" and "Northern," made known to miners with wilderness thirst that civilization and its vices were there. A half-dozen new squat log structures, a few tents, and an incoming stream of dog teams and gold seekers, a small clearing in the primeval forest -- that was Fairbanks as I first saw it on April 9, 1903.

Judge James Wickersham, 1938

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