The Taylor Highway (numbered Alaska Route 5) is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska that extends 160 miles (258 km) from Tetlin Junction, about 11 miles (17 km) south of Tok on the Alaska Highway, to Eagle.
It was built in 1953 to provide access to Eagle, Chicken, and the historic Fortymile Mining District. It connects to the Top of the World Highway 96 miles (155 km) from Tetlin, at Jack Wade Junction, allowing road access to Dawson City, Yukon during parts of the year. It is 79 miles (127 km) from Jack Wade Junction to Dawson City.
The first 60 miles (96 km) of the highway are paved; the rest are gravel. The highway is closed to automobile traffic from October through April, but is used by snowmobiles in the winter.
The large Fortymile caribou herd roams near the highway. The highway also provides access to the Fortymile River National Wild and Scenic River system.
Read more about Taylor Highway: Major Intersections
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“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“The improved American highway system ... isolated the American-in-transit. On his speedway ... he had no contact with the towns which he by-passed. If he stopped for food or gas, he was served no local fare or local fuel, but had one of Howard Johnson’s nationally branded ice cream flavors, and so many gallons of Exxon. This vast ocean of superhighways was nearly as free of culture as the sea traversed by the Mayflower Pilgrims.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)