Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

Meanwhile, units were pushing to close the gap between Whitehorse and Big Delta. Among the regiments sent to reinforce the initial four units along the route were the 93rd, 95th, and 97th Engineers. In the parlance of the still largely segregated U.S. armed forces, these were “Negro,” or “colored,” units, whose effectiveness was still questioned by many in the army’s officer corps. The 93rd deployed out of Skagway and the 95th out of Dawson Creek, while the 97th blazed the trail eastward up the Tanana for the following PRA civilian crews. When the 97th linked up with the 18th Engineers working west from Whitehorse near Beaver Creek about twenty miles east of the Alaska-Canadian border, it was not only the completion of the highway’s pioneer trail but also a symbolic step. By carving the most miles in the final stretch, the 97th had done as much on the ground to silence generations of prejudice as the famed Tuskegee airmen were about to do in the air.