Anchorage, Alaska — Alaska is moving ahead with plans to replace the bridge that honors Black World War II soldiers who worked on the Alaska Highway, while preserving part of that tribute in the process.
The state transportation department said it will replace the 1,885-foot (575-meter) bridge that spans the Gerstle River near Delta Junction, which marks the end point of the Alaska Highway about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Fairbanks. The current Black Veterans Memorial Bridge, renamed in 1993, will remain in place until the new bridge opens in 2031, according to the state’s plan described in news coverage.
Rather than demolishing the full structure, the state intends to keep two of the bridge’s nine trestles in place and refashion them into a memorial. The two spans, described as the first trestles on either end of the old bridge, will retain the Black Veterans Memorial Bridge name, while the replacement bridge will be expected to carry the memorial name unofficially unless the Alaska Legislature formally makes it official.
The department will offer the remaining seven trestles for free to outside applicants, including states, local governments or private entities. Those trestles come with requirements: recipients must maintain the historical features and provide public use, and they must follow restrictions that include not allowing vehicular traffic, paying for removal, transportation and lead abatement, and maintaining features that make the bridge historically significant.
Angelica Stabs, a spokesperson for the Alaska transportation department, said the state plans to keep the Black Veterans Memorial Bridge sign and ensure the two preserved sections are visible from the new bridge. Stabs said, however, the two sections will be blocked off to prevent people from climbing or vandalizing them, and she said no pullout is planned; the new bridge will parallel the existing bridge to the east, leaving about 50 feet of space between the locations.
Mary Leith, a former Delta Junction mayor and a member of the historical society, said she was pleased some history would be saved but argued the state should do it properly. “I would hope that if they’re going to save it, then they save it properly,” Leith said, adding she wants proper signage and a highway pullout area near the historic bridge so people can walk on it.
The memorial ties back to the Alaska Highway’s wartime construction, when Black soldiers worked in segregated units while helping build the first road link between Alaska and the Lower 48. The effort used 11,000 troops from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers divided by race, and coverage of the project says the conditions ranged from 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) to minus 70 F (minus 56 C), with work that included dealing with mosquitoes, boggy land, and permafrost.
The National Park Service historical account cited in the reporting says Black soldiers faced conditions that were “nearly unbearable” in part because many came from the Deep South, were not typically permitted to use heavy machinery, and were instead assigned to work with picks, shovels and axes. The account also said Black troops were prohibited from entering towns and were confined to wilderness assignments.
That reporting also ties the road link to broader changes in the U.S. Army, saying it took Black soldiers working from the north just over eight months to connect with white soldiers coming from the south to finish the gravel road—then called the Alcan Highway—from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Delta Junction on Oct. 25, 1942. The National Park Service said many of the Black soldiers were later decorated, and it cited that the U.S. Army eventually became the first government agency to integrate in 1948, a shift it said is largely credited in part to the soldiers’ work.
The state’s current move comes as officials say the aging bridge has reached the point where replacement is necessary. Alaska was still a territory at the time of the highway’s creation, and reporting about the campaign says Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and Dutch Harbor, as well as invasions of the Alaska islands Kiska and Attu, increased urgency for a land route because ocean shipping lanes to the West Coast could be vulnerable.
The state transportation department said it is accepting proposals until March 6 for recipients of the seven trestles. The department said applicants do not have to take all of the pieces, and that it will consider proposals seeking one or two trestles for uses such as a walkway over a creek in a public park.