The Glenn Highway (part of Alaska Route 1) is a

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

in the U.S. state of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, extending from

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

near

Merrill Field Merrill Field is a public-use general aviation airport located one mile (1.6 km) east of downtown Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage in the U.S. state of Alaska. The airport is owned by Municipality of Anchorage. It opened in 1930 as Anchorage A ...

to Glennallen on the Richardson Highway. The Tok Cut-Off is often considered part of the Glenn Highway, for a total length of .

Route description

The longest stretch of

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

runs mostly along the Glenn Highway, beginning in north

, 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 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 The Seward Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska that extends from Seward, Alaska, Seward to Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage. It was completed in 1951 and runs through the scenic Kenai Peninsula, Chugach National Forest, Turnagain Arm ...

), and as such is the main traffic corridor for Anchorage's

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

s in the Chugiak-Eagle River and Mat-Su areas. The highest point on the highway is at ''Eureka Summit'', which sits on the divide between the Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges.

History

The highway originated as the Palmer Road in the 1930s, to reach the agricultural colony at Palmer. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

it was completed to Glennallen as part of a massive program of

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

road and base building that also resulted in the Alaska Highway, and connected Anchorage to the continental highway system. 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 Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

fields (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. That fall, excavation began, and was resumed in the summer of

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

. The quarry is near the Glenn Highway, approximately 150 miles northeast of

. This specimen was the first associated skeleton of an individual dinosaur discovered in all of Alaska.

Interstate Highway System

Glenn Highway is part of the unsigned part of the

Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Hi ...

as Interstate A-1. Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities
Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Routes
, April 2006

Major intersections

Gallery

File:Matanuska Valley ENBLA17.jpg, The Glenn Highway on the right side of the Matanuska River and Kings Mountain at mile 76 (km 123). File:Matglacier.JPG, Matanuska Glacier seen from the Glenn Highway at mile 102 (km 164) File:Gunsight_Mountain_Glenn_Highway_2.jpg, Gunsight Mountain and the Glenn Highway near mile 129 (km 208) File:Glenn Highway and Mount Drum.jpg, Mount Drum and the Glenn Highway near mile 170 (km 274) File:State Fair Winner.jpg, Granite Peak from Glenn Highway File:Mt. Wickersham.jpg, Mount Wickersham and Matanuska Glacier from mile 101 of the highway File:Amulet Peak rising above Matanuska River.jpg, 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.

External links

A journey down the Glenn Highway

{{Authority control Interstate Highways in Alaska National Scenic Byways State highways in Alaska Transportation in Anchorage, Alaska Transportation in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska Transportation in Unorganized Borough, Alaska