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Falcon Joslin House

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1904. 413 Cowles St.

Built when Fairbanks was just a fledgling town, the Falcon Joslin house is a two-story foursquare building. A one-story enclosed porch across the front and a one-story addition to one side have somewhat obscured the upright quality of the house. The wood-framed house with novelty siding and corner boards has a shallow-pitched hip roof with a hip-roofed dormer.

Falcon Joslin played a crucial role in the battle for survival between Chena and Fairbanks. Joslin, who had built a 12-mile railroad near Dawson, came to the Fairbanks area to build a railroad to the goldfields. In 1904 he plotted a spur line from Chena to Fairbanks, thereby giving Fairbanks, which was plagued with low water, easy access to the deeper waters of Chena, while at the same time making Chena nothing more than a transfer point. Joslin's construction of his house in Fairbanks in 1904 illustrates this commitment to the community. By 1907 his Tanana Valley Mines Railroad, a narrow-gauge line, ran 45 miles from Chena to Chatanika, with a spur to Fairbanks. Once the gold rush was over, however, the railroad had financial difficulties. Joslin sold the line to the U.S. government in 1917; he had left Fairbanks the year before.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Alison K. Hoagland
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Citation

Alison K. Hoagland, "Falcon Joslin House", [Fairbanks, Alaska], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AK-01-IN001.4.

Print Source

Buildings of Alaska, Alison K. Hoagland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 215-215.

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