Rogers–Post Site

On Alaska’s North Slope near Walakpa Bay, Will Rogers and Wiley Post were killed on August 15, 1935, after fog forced them to land for directions on their flight from Fairbanks to Barrow, now Utqiaġvik. Soon after taking off again, their plane’s motor failed, and it crashed into the lagoon in the first fatal air accident near Utqiaġvik. The place later became a memorial landscape, with monuments added in 1938 and 1953, though coastal erosion has threatened the site. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, it is significant both for the crash and for the commemoration that followed.

Utqiagvik, Alaska · United States