Pipeline towns.

• Author: Jones, Patricia
• Position: Trans-Alaska pipeline

The 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline snakes across the state from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, traversing tundra, mountain ranges and hundreds of small streams and rivers, a wide swath cut through the wilderness.

In addition to the many miles of Alaska's wild land, crude oil carried in the pipeline also passes through several communities, which have experienced both positive and negative feedback from the man-made marvel.

Stretching north from the port at Valdez, the pipeline touches a number of communities in Alaska, both located along the transportation route, such as Delta and Fairbanks, as well as those cities some distance away from the physical structure, such as Anchorage and Kenai.

"I don't think any of the communities were ready for the pipeline when it was built," said Neal Fried, a state Department of Labor economist. "I know some people thought it would be a good opportunity, but no one had a clue about the magnitude of the project."

Fried was a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks during construction of the pipeline in the mid-1970s. He remembers well the busy streets, crazy bar scene in downtown Fairbanks and the huge influx of people.

Now, more than 20 years later, that bustling atmosphere can be measured in one precise statistic: migration numbers.

"The peak year in Alaska's history - the biggest single year in population change - was between 1974 and 1975, when our population grew by 36,000," Fried said. "That's a growth rate of almost 10 percent in only one year."

Pam Held, who now serves as the executive director of the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce, also has strong memories of living in the Interior huh and construction headquarters during that pipeline construction boom.

"Being a citizen of Fairbanks was very difficult because the city was not equipped to handle the influx of people," she said. "We had massive transportation and housing problems." The price for commodities was outrageous.

National media visited the Last Frontier, focusing television cameras on Fairbanks' notorious Second Avenue. There, they found construction workers with fat paychecks enjoying easy access to bars, gambling joints, drags and prostitutes. "It was extremely hard to really maintain what Fairbanks really was during those construction years," Held said.

But now, Fairbanks has grown into its role as a hub for big construction projects. City leaders have also sought to diversify the economy, Held said, "to make sure we're not totally...