100-year-old technology credited for modern Iditarod

March 18, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

NOME - Just days before the frenzied conclusion of Iditarod 2005, before cheering crowds filled Nome's Front Street, and before hordes of photographers, television crews and reporters descended on the race's winner, Robert Sorlie, Alaskan historian Alden Todd sat quietly in the Nome Museum, reminding a room full of reporters and mushing enthusiasts that the "Last Great Race" owed its very existence to an event that occurred 100 years ago.

At the head of a long table and surrounded by photos and archives from the famous 1925 serum run to Nome, the nearly 90-year-old Todd told his audience that the serum run, which saved countless Nome children from the deadly diphtheria disease, wouldn't have happened if not for the successful completion of a telegraph line that connected Nome to Seattle in 1905.

Instead of celebrating one of the great modern feats in human history with a commemorative sled dog race, Todd said the world might well have recorded one of the darkest moments in Alaska.

As it turned out, the line was built to Nome and Dr. Curtis Welch was able to inform Anchorage doctors that he desperately needed the serum. That simple communication led to the epic delivery of the serum to Nome via the chain of now-immortalized dog-sled teams.

"If it hadn't been for that telegraph system, the serum run wouldn't have been possible," he said. "Because of that telegraph from Nome to Anchorage, Hospital Air knew that they needed the serum and they provided it. If it hadn't been built, the message would have never got out and the diphtheria epidemic would have been much more serious."

The telegraph line, Todd explained, was a U.S. Army project, coordinated by Gen. A. W. Greeley in an effort to connect Alaska gold boom villages and mining camps to Seattle.

At the turn of the century, Todd said Nome, like many mining outposts, was a rough-and-tumble town with no law enforcement and no way to protect honest miners from thieves and murderers envious of their profits. In order to bring law and order, communication had to be established to Outside law enforcement agencies.

"There was all kinds of highway robbery and murder in that period," Todd said.

The original goal was just to communicate within the then territory so troops and doctors could be notified in the event of an emergency. Todd said the project eventually turned into a plan to connect Alaska to the entire country.

During the 1925 serum run, Todd was a 7-year-old schoolboy in Washington, D.C., but despite the vast distance from Nome, Todd said he and his classmates followed every detail of the life-saving race to Nome.

Todd's hometown also experienced a diphtheria scare right around the same time as the serum run, and he said the country as a whole was very aware of the deadly disease.

"We followed the whole thing in the newspapers," he said, recalling that moment that has stuck with him for more than 80 years.

This week, back in the very town he had heard about so many years ago, Todd's enthusiasm was apparent. While victory tales and toasts filled the legendary Nome saloons, he had not let the historic significance of a telegraph line go unnoticed.

"It changed communication in Alaska forever," he said, "and it made a revolutionary difference."

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.Davidson@frontiersman.com.