James W. Dalton -- Dalton Hwy pull-out, Yukon-Koyukuk Borough, AK USA - Alaska Historic Markers on Waymarking.com

This historical marker is located at the "Welcome to the Dalton Highway" pullout along the Dalton Highway, not far from the starting point of the highway.

The marker reads as follows:

"JAMES W. DALTON

Designated the Dalton Highway in 1981 by the Alaska Legislature, the highway to the Arctic coast memorializes James William Dalton, a pioneer in northern Alaska petroleum exploration, transportation across roadless expanses, and construction and permafrost environments.

A lifelong Alaskan, Dalton was born January 31, 1913 and died May 9, 1977. He graduated in 1937 in mining engineering from the University of Alaska School of Mines. After six years’ experience in northern and sub-arctic mining and construction, he joined the U.S. Navy Seabees in 1943, seeking assignment to the oil exploration program in Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 in arctic Alaska.

His three-year Navy service, instead, took him to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii where the Navy Seabees were assigned to reconstruct harbors and other military installations that had been destroyed or damaged in Japanese bombing raids during World War II.

In 1946, as a civilian engineer, Dalton joined the Navy’s Alaska oil exploration project where he worked to its completion, ending the job in 1953 as superintendent of operations in NPR-4 (now NPRA).
He was recruited in late 1954 by the United States defense effort that constructed the distant early warning system (DEW Line) that spread radar coverage from Greenland across the Arctic arch to the northwest Alaska coast. As the DEW Line Construction Superintendent in Alaska, his sector was completed and operational in 1957.

His death in 1977 ended another 20 years as engineering consultant for various mining and petroleum exploration efforts in Interior and Arctic Alaska. Dalton’s knowledge about the roadless North Slope, the difficult Arctic Ocean access, the areas resources, the daunting challenges - that knowledge assisted state of Alaska officials in the 1960s as they selected state lands that have proven to be valuable petroleum-producing resources. Today we recognize many of these areas for their development value: Colville River basin, Simpson seeps, Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk, Umiat, Gubic Gas Field, Thompson Point, Alpine, Pt, McIntyre and more.

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Note: the Dalton Trail, over the Chilkat Pass from Lynn Canal in Southeast Alaska to the Yukon Territory in Canada, was established and utilized by James Dalton’s father, Jack Dalton, between 1897 and 1910.

Marker Name: James W. Dalton Marker Type: Roadside Addtional Information: This marker is located near the southern most stretch of the Dalton Highway, not far from the highway's intersection with Alaska State Hwy. 2, north of Fairbanks Date Dedicated / Placed: unknown Marker Number: N/A

Visit Instructions:
Preferred would be to post a photo of you OR your GPS at the marker location. Also if you know of any additional links not already mentioned about this bit of Alaska history please include that in your log.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   12/01/2022 Benchmark Blasterz visited it