It has the feel of a road to nowhere, a hard surface road that turns west from the Parks Highway at mile 283.5, though signs direct one to Clear and Anderson. Clear is an Air Force missile detection station that has been in existence for 40 years.
Anderson, tucked back in the spruce and aspen woods near the Nenana River, soon followed when Art Anderson and three others homesteaded and began subdividing their acreage.
Today’s highway traveler may be most interested in Anderson because of its well appointed city park by the Nenana River, hiking trails and its clear view of Mount McKinley. The last weekend of July the park’s 685 acres comfortably accommodate visitors at a popular Blue Grass and Country Music Festival.
It may be known for its festival but without planning it, Anderson has become a kind of museum, the epitome of recycle. More than a dozen structures in the town are makeovers, surplus federal architectural relics from the past.
Six of the makeovers can be seen from the corner of First and A streets. The section of the residence on the corner with the four-sided peaked roof was built by the Alaska Railroad in about 1917. Other historical buildings can be seen throughout town.
Anderson may be a little town but opportunity and practicality have turned it into a museum of government architecture and a monument to the creativity of early Alaskans.