Mount Billy Mitchell is a prominent peak located in the

Chugach Mountains The Chugach Mountains of southern Alaska are the northernmost of the several mountain ranges that make up the Pacific Coast Ranges of the western edge of North America. The range is about long and wide, and extends from the Knik and Turnag ...

, east of Valdez and west of the

Copper River Copper River may refer to several places: *Copper River (Alaska), in the United States * Copper River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (afte ...

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 ...

. This mountain forms a prominent and easily visible landmark between mile markers 43 and 51 of the

Richardson Highway The Richardson Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, running 368 miles (562 km) and connecting Valdez to Fairbanks. It is marked as Alaska Route 4 from Valdez to Delta Junction and as Alaska Route 2 from there to Fairbank ...

, 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 weather sta ...

(see photograph). Mount Billy Mitchell was named for William "Billy" Mitchell (18791936), a brigadier general of the

United States Army Air Service The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial warf ...

who is often referred to as the "father of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

Naming

In response to the Klondike Gold Rush, the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

established numerous military outposts throughout the

District of Alaska The District of Alaska was the federal government’s designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884, to August 24, 1912, when it became the Territory of Alaska. Previously (1867–1884) it had been known as the Department of Alaska, a military des ...

. As a lieutenant in the

United States Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army responsible for creating and managing Military communications, communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was ...

, Mitchell was stationed in Alaska at that time. On May 26, 1900, the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

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 A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...

camps in Alaska by

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

. 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 Communication 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 Signa ...

(WAMCATS). Construction of the WAMCATS system began in the summer of 1900. Stretching from Fort Liscum at Valdez in

Southcentral Alaska Southcentral Alaska (), also known as the Gulf Coast Region,Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, Northern Opportunity Alaska's Economic Development Strategy, 2016, at 84 (Alaska 2016). Accessed June 1, 2023. https: ...

Fort Egbert Fort Egbert was a U.S. Army base in Eagle, Alaska. It operated from 1899 to 1911. History Fort Egbert was established in 1899, during the Klondike Gold Rush, as U.S. Army headquarters in the District of Alaska. It was named by U.S. President Wi ...

Eagle Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

on the

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

to Fort St. Michael to

Nome Nome may refer to: Country subdivision * Nome (Egypt), an administrative division within ancient Egypt * Nome (Greece), the administrative division immediately below the ''peripheries of Greece'' (, pl. ) Places United States * Nome, Alaska ...

on the

Seward Peninsula The Seward Peninsula is a large peninsula on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska whose westernmost point is Cape Prince of Wales. The peninsula projects about into the Bering Sea between Norton Sound, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi ...

, construction crews completed the final overland connection south of Fairbanks 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 seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and car ...

, and a

wireless telegraphy Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using electrical cable, cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimenta ...

system crossing the

Norton Sound The Norton Sound ( Inupiaq: ''Imaqpak'') is an inlet of the Bering Sea on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, south of the Seward Peninsula. It is about 240 km (150 mi) long and 200 km (125 mi) wide. The Yukon Riv ...

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. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

in the

contiguous United States The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The te ...

. Among the greatest logistical and technological achievements of its day, the WAMCATS included the first successful long-distance

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

operation in the world. A

historical marker A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, bearing text or an image in relief, or both, ...

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 Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (Alaska DOT&PF) is a department within the government of Alaska. Its headquarters are in Alaska's capital city, Juneau. The mission of Alaska DOT&PF is to "''Keep Alaska Moving through ...

, the text reads (see photograph):

Glaciers

The climate of the Chugach Mountains is strongly influenced by its location close to

Prince William Sound Prince William Sound ( Sugpiaq: ''Suungaaciq'') is a sound off the Gulf of Alaska on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its largest port is Valdez, at the southern terminus of the ...

and especially the

Gulf of Alaska The Gulf of Alaska ( Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the ...

. The Gulf of Alaska generates powerful

winter storm A winter storm (also known as snow storm) is an event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain. In temperate continental and subarct ...

s 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

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s on Mount Billy Mitchell, especially on its north face, which is its

leeward In geography and seamanship, windward () and leeward () are directions relative to 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 o ...

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 Ablation ( – removal) is the removal or destruction of something from an object by vaporization, chipping, erosion, erosive processes, or by other means. Examples of ablative materials are described below, including spacecraft material for as ...

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, url-access=subscription {{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 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...

, 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