Mount Billy Mitchell is a prominent peak located in the Chugach Mountains, east of Valdez and west of the Copper River in the U.S. state of Alaska. This mountain forms a prominent and easily visible landmark between mile markers 43 and 51 of the Richardson Highway, as the highway passes just to its west between Tonsina and the

Thompson Pass Thompson Pass is a 2,600 foot-high (855 meter-high) gap in the Chugach Mountains northeast of Valdez, Alaska.Geographic Names Information Service"Thompson Pass, Alaska" U.S. Geological Survey. Accessed July 2, 2009. It is the snowiest place in Al ...

(see photograph). Mount Billy Mitchell was named for William "Billy" Mitchell (18791936), a brigadier general of the United States Army Air Service who is often referred to as the "father of the United States Air Force".

Naming

In response to the Klondike Gold Rush, the United States Army established numerous military outposts throughout the District of Alaska. As a lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corps, Mitchell was stationed in Alaska at that time. On May 26, 1900, the United States Congress appropriated $450,000 in order to establish a communications system to connect the many isolated and widely separated U.S. Army outposts and civilian Gold Rush camps in Alaska by telegraph. Along with Captain George C. Brunnell, Lieutenant Mitchell oversaw the construction of what became known as the

Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System The Alaska Communications System (ACS), also known as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), was a system of cables and telegraph lines authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1900 and constructed by the U.S. Army Signal C ...

(WAMCATS). Construction of the WAMCATS system began in the summer of 1900. Stretching from

Fort Liscum Fort Liscum was a United States Army post in the Alaska Territory on the south shore of Valdez Bay, across from the modern site of Valdez, Alaska. It operated from 1900 to 1922. History In 1899, Captain William R. Abercrombie designated a site f ...

at Valdez in Southcentral Alaska to Fort Egbert at

Eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

on the

Canada–United States border The border between Canada and the United States is the longest international border in the world. The terrestrial boundary (including boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts) is long. The land border has two sections: Can ...

Fort St. Michael Fort St. Michael was an installation of the United States Army at St. Michael, Alaska, on St. Michael Island in Norton Bay on the central west coast of Alaska. The fort was in active service between 1897 and 1925, and was originally established ...

to Nome on the Seward Peninsula, construction crews completed the final overland connection south of

Fairbanks Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...

on June 27, 1903. By the time WAMCATS was fully operational in 1904, the system included almost of overland telegraph cable, over of

submarine communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

, and a wireless telegraphy system crossing the Norton Sound to Nome. This telegraph line was the first to link American outposts in Eagle, Valdez and Nome with each other as well as to Washington, D.C. in the

contiguous United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

. Among the greatest logistical and technological achievements of its day, the WAMCATS included the first successful long-distance radio operation in the world. A historical marker is located at a roadside highway turnout just north of where the Richardson Highway crosses the Tiekel River. Placed by the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, the text reads (see photograph):

Glaciers

The climate of the Chugach Mountains is strongly influenced by its location close to Prince William Sound and especially the Gulf of Alaska. The Gulf of Alaska generates powerful winter storms which drive heavy precipitation northwards into southern and Southcentral Alaska, including the Chugach Mountains. More snow falls in the vicinity of Valdez—an average annual snowfall of —than in any other location in the United States. Over thousands of years, this snow has accumulated to form glaciers on Mount Billy Mitchell, especially on its north face, which is its

leeward Windward () and leeward () are terms used to describe the direction of the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e. towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point of reference ...

side. Despite this long-term glaciation and even in the face of continuing heavy snowfall (the winter of 2011-2012 saw record snowfall in this area), the rate of ablation has exceeded the rate of accumulation over the past few decades. Because of this, Mount Billy Mitchell's glaciers have retreated significantly in recent years.

Notes

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite journal, last=Jessup, first=DE , title=Connecting Alaska: The Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (abstract) , journal=The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , volume=6, issue=4, pages=385–408, year=2007, issn=1943-3557, doi=10.1017/S1537781400002218 , s2cid=162709568 , url=http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7879537 {{cite web , author = National Climatic Data Center , author-link = National Climatic Data Center , title = Comparative Climate Data for the United States through 2018 , pages = 47–54 , publisher = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , location = Asheville, North Carolina , year = 2018 , url = https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/CCD-2018.pdf , access-date = 2020-01-06

Naming

Glaciers

See also

Notes

Further reading