Powering the Interior: Celebrating eighty years of Usibelli Coal Mine.

• Author: Pesznecker, Katie

World War II wrought lasting changes in Alaska. The town of Whittier was built from scratch as a rail port, for example. The Alaska Highway, constructed in a single season, connected the territory to the Lower 48 through Canada. And military interest in oil reserves led to exploration on the North Slope.

The war also gave the state its only currently producing coal mine, now marking its 80th anniversary.

Emil Usibelli, an Italian immigrant, worked in Interior Alaska's underground coal mines throughout the '30s. In 1943, he and his friend, Thad Sandford, obtained a coal lease from the US Army to produce 10,000 tons of coal within a year for Ladd Army Airfield, today's Fort Wainwright. Rather than tunnel underground, Usibelli worked with a TD40 dozer and a converted GMC logging truck to till soil away from outcrops, and then he pushed exposed coal into the truck bed.

Some mining traditionalists were skeptical, but this overground method worked. Usibelli continued to develop tools and technology as he formally incorporated his company in 1948. By 1950, Usibelli's overground mining strategy had the company's annual coal output exceeding all others in Alaska combined. Usibelli purchased the nearby Suntrana coal mine in 1961, a final step in leading the Interior coal market in the military, commercial, and municipal sectors.

Today, Usibelli Coal Mine (UCM) produces more than 1 million tons of coal per year, all of which is burned at six Interior power plants. From its rustic and humble beginnings, steered by the vision of its pioneering founder, Usibelli is a true powerhouse in the Interior--not just literally, for the valuable coal it supplies, but for its economic impact and community investment.

The Reason for Healy

"Usibelli has a great story," says Lisa Cassino, UCM vice president of public relations. "We remain family-owned and operated and the longest continually operated mine in the state."

Leadership of the company passed from Emil Usibelli to his son, the late Joseph Usibelli Sr., and now to his grandson, Joe Usibelli Jr.

Approximately 322 direct and indirect Alaska employees rely on coal to make a living, according to Cassino. About one-third of those are UCM's year-round employees, earning wages more than twice the statewide average. The mine's statewide employment multiplier is about three--meaning that for every job created at the mine, two indirect and induced jobs are created elsewhere in the Alaska economy, according to McKinley Research Group.

"More than $48 million can be attributed to statewide wages related to coal mining," Cassino says. "Onethird of our...