PROLOGUE
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF FAIRBANKS, ALASKA

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Cole, Terrence M. (1998) Prologue: Historical Archaeology and the Hidden History of Fairbanks, Alaska. In Historical Development of the Chena River Waterfront, Fairbanks, Alaska: An Archaeological Perspective, edited and compiled by Peter M. Bowers and Brian L. Gannon, CD-ROM. Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Fairbanks.

Like every historic community, Fairbanks is a city built directly upon the ruins of the past. Above ground much of Fairbanks' history has been burned, bulldozed, or washed away without a trace. Unfortunately relatively few signs of the past are still visible on the city streets; Fairbanks is afflicted by the all-too-common American urge to demolish anything that stands in the way of a good parking lot.

Nevertheless, a vast accumulation of historic archaeology still lies directly under our feet. Beneath the modern city is a blanket of building ruins, historic features, relics, and artifacts that date back to the founding of Fairbanks in 1901. In some places within only inches of the surface the soil is littered with the scraps and pieces of the town's nearly hundred year-long history. These buried remnants of the past, as scattered and incomplete as they are, represent a valuable time capsule for future generations.

The Barnette Archaeological Project (1992-1997) was the first scientific and systematic effort to discover the hidden history of Fairbanks that lay beneath the ground surface. Undertaken to comply with federal laws on historic preservation, the project investigated and mitigated the archaeological impact of a proposed bridge across the Chena River connecting Barnette and Illinois Streets. In the course of two summers, a team of historical archaeologists, surveyors, geologists, and engineers excavated the remains of three historic buildings and part of a steamboat dock, carefully recorded hundreds of sediment layers, and recovered more than 100,000 historic artifacts from the banks of the Chena River, from beneath Barnette Street and Samson Hardware parking lot.

In many respects--like many archaeological remains-- these ruins and artifacts are literally garbage, the junk pile of history, the refuse people tossed aside or threw away. Of course the remains of historical archaeology are far more recent than ancient Indian arrowheads or Eskimo ivory carvings, but the principle is the same. The richest archaeological digs uncover what are basically garbage dumps. Ironically, the most lasting tell-tale signs identifying a culture are often the piles of trash inadvertently left behind, which are preserved only because they were thrown away. Since human beings are traditionally such a messy species, we usually leave a lot of evidence on the trail.

The bulk of the digging in the Barnette Project took place where two gold rush saloons once stood: the California Saloon on the south side of the river and the Miners' Home Saloon on the north. Predictably, as they scraped away the dirt that lay beneath these two old watering holes, the one thing the archaeologists found more than anything else was broken glass. Buried in the dirt the excavators found tens of thousands of bits of broken glass from whiskey bottles, beer bottles, soda bottles and perfume bottles. Given the thirst of the patrons in a typical gold rush, finding a mine field of broken glass was not unexpected; but what was unexpected was digging up bottles of Guinness and quart bottles of Quaker Maid Whiskey, still full and sealed as the day they left the brewery and the distillery.

The list of artifacts that was found is incredible: a leather miners' poke, dice, playing cards, pool table slate, coins and trade tokens, steamboat shipping tags, a piece of an old wooden bowling ball, shot glasses, patent medicine bottles, ceramic cups and plates, tin cans, porcelain insulators, electrical wire, light bulbs, cigarette packs, tools, gloves, boots, buckles, suspenders, buttons, horseshoes, Winchester cartridges, a mouse trap, and much more. The museum-load of material which the archaeologists excavated and preserved is almost enough so that even if we knew nothing else about gold rush Fairbanks, one could essentially recreate the city as it stood a century ago.

It is difficult to say with certainty what many of the objects found in the ground really mean. This project was largely a salvage operation, meant to preserve and document the historical archaeological record before it was destroyed. In this imperfect record, however, are glimpses of events which shaped our history: the great 1906 fire which destroyed much of downtown Fairbanks, the 1905 and 1911 floods, the various attempts made by townspeople to stabilize the riverbank, and the changes from log frontier outpost to permanent urban center. Recorded in the soil, too, is evidence of a changing riverfront town supplied by steamboats, to a railroad town supplied by trains.

The needs and concerns of the present are always changing, as are the questions that people have about the past. So too, the definition of records that are relevant and worthy of preservation are also constantly evolving. Too often historians find that the document, report, or letter which would solve the question that they want answered, was destroyed long ago, because no one ever dreamed that particular information would be of interest to anyone.

Naturally it is difficult to predict with complete accuracy what tangible evidence of our past might be needed in the future to solve a problem that has not yet arisen. Therefore the Barnette Archaeological Project can be seen as both the preservation of a slice of hidden history, and a unique resource for the future.

Terrence M. Cole
Department of History
University of Alaska - Fairbanks

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