Truckers' Rebellion

Truckers on Alaska's Richardson Highway resisted fees imposed in 1935 by the U.S. Department of the Interior to push freight onto the federally built Alaska Railroad, which was losing money because trucking to Fairbanks was cheaper. After the Department added a toll for the Alaska Road Commission ferry at McCarty, now called Big Delta, some truckers began using the ferry without permission. In September 1940, Deputy U.S. Marshal O'Connor came from Fairbanks and arrested 14 men. On October 14, 1940, while O'Connor was testifying in Fairbanks, truckers seized Deputy U.S. Marshal Dennis Doyle, took his shotgun, locked him in the scale house at McCarty, moved ten loads of freight across the river, then released Doyle and returned his gun. A grand jury in Fairbanks refused to charge the truckers with assault, and the previously arrested truckers were acquitted. After the ferry was removed from the water for the winter, the dispute eased temporarily. In June 1941, the truckers built a pirate ferry to avoid the government-owned ferry and toll, and the government responded by putting up a gate at Shaw Creek twelve miles up the road where truckers had to show toll receipts; the truckers then pulled down the gate. The Alaska Road Commission and the truckers eventually agreed to place collected fees in escrow until a consensus could be reached, and district court upheld the tolls. With the onset of World War II, the railroad became profitable, the Department removed all fees on the Richardson Highway in July 1942, and a bridge built across the Tanana River in 1943 made the ferry obsolete and ended the conflict.

Big Delta, Alaska · United States