A Town Called Chicken

In the 1800's the gold rush drew people to the far flung corners of Alaska. One of those places, that is now know as Chicken, was were some miners went in search of gold. The area which is near the south fork of Forty-Mile River is to the southeast of Fairbanks. To drive there from Fairbanks takes about five hours on seldom traveled roads.

When deciding on the name for the town, residents wanted the name to be Ptarmigan. The reason for the name was because residents often kept themselves fed on a diet of ptarmigan that were plentiful in that area, especially during the long winters.

The problem was though, that at the time, no one could agree on the spelling. For fear of the name being a source of ridicule and jeering if people couldn't spell it correctly, they went with the much easier to spell, Chicken, instead. To this day people come from all over to visit one of the few remaining gold rush towns in Alaska.

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