Kennecott, Alaska: The Copper Ghost Town and Its Ghost Stories

Kennecott sits beside the Kennicott Glacier in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. For nearly three decades it was a company town for one of the richest copper mines in the world, with a mill, bunkhouses, a hospital, a school and a dance hall. When the copper ran out the people left, and the red buildings were simply abandoned to the weather.

It is Alaska’s most striking ghost town, now a National Historic Landmark owned largely by the National Park Service, and it has a small but persistent set of ghost stories: voices in empty buildings, machinery heard where none runs, and tombstones beside an old railroad grade that are gone when travelers look again. This guide covers the history, the stories and what it takes to get there.

History of Kennecott

In 1900 two prospectors, Clarence Warner and ‘Tarantula Jack’ Smith, spotted a green outcrop high on the slopes above the Kennicott Glacier. It was copper ore of astonishing richness, reported at up to 70 percent chalcocite. Mining engineer Stephen Birch secured the claims, and with the backing of the Guggenheim family and J.P. Morgan, the so-called Alaska Syndicate set out to get the ore to market. The name of the company, Kennecott, came from a clerk’s misspelling of the glacier’s name, which is why the town and the glacier are still spelled differently.

The key was a railroad. The Copper River and Northwestern Railway, built between 1907 and 1911, ran about 200 miles from Kennecott to the port of Cordova, through some of the hardest country in Alaska. Ore came down from the mines in buckets on aerial tramways to the mill, where it was crushed and sorted, then rode the railroad to Cordova and shipped to smelters in Tacoma, Washington. By 1916 the mines were producing more than 100,000 tons of copper a year.

Kennecott was a company town: alcohol and prostitution were banned, so the nearby town of McCarthy grew up to supply both, along with a hospital, a school and a saloon of its own. Miners worked eight-hour shifts seven days a week, with only the Fourth of July and Christmas off. A small cemetery, with about 50 grave markers, served families who could not afford to send their dead home or wanted to keep them close.

Over its life the mines produced more than 4.6 million tons of ore and earned well over $100 million. The Glacier Mine closed in 1929 and, as copper prices fell and the richest ore ran out, the last three mines, the Erie, Jumbo and Bonanza, closed in September 1938. The last train left on November 10, 1938, and the town was left nearly as it stood. Only a handful of people lived on in McCarthy and Kennecott in the decades that followed.

The site was listed on the National Register in 1978 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1986. In 1998 the National Park Service bought much of the mill town and has been stabilizing the buildings since. The old Blackburn School is now a park visitor center, and the 14-story concentration mill is open on guided tours.

The ghost stories of Kennecott

Voices in the empty buildings

In 2025 the columnist Laurel Downing Bill collected Kennecott’s ghost stories for Senior Voice. Visitors and park rangers, she wrote, have heard disembodied voices in empty buildings and footsteps in the streets. Some have reported shadowy figures in the old mill and the clank of machinery, as though the workers were still on their shift. None of these accounts names the people involved or gives dates, so they are best read as the stories told about the place rather than documented events.

The tombstones by the railroad

The strangest story belongs to the old railroad grade. The Anchorage Daily News reported in 2012 that travelers near Chitina and along the McCarthy Road, which follows parts of the old line, told of passing tombstones beside the track that were gone when they came back the same way. Many men died building the Copper River and Northwestern through glaciers and canyons, and the story is usually linked to them.

The housing project that stopped

Both sources also tell of a state housing project along the old track in the late 1990s. Workers said they heard the voices of children and adults when no one was there, heard wailing near the tombstones, and found tools vanishing from their belts and toolboxes. According to the stories, the project was abandoned. We could not find a separate record of the project or why it ended, so treat this as local legend.

The honest verdict

Kennecott does not have a single famous ghost or a named tragedy at the heart of its lore, and the National Park Service does not promote ghost stories. What it has is an overwhelming sense of absence: a huge industrial town, built at enormous cost, left with its machinery in place. Walking through the mill as the light fades, it is easy to understand why people hear things.

Where to look

• The concentration mill: The 14-story red mill where ore was crushed and sorted, and where shadowy figures and machinery sounds are reported. Entry is only on a guided tour.
• The bunkhouses and town streets: Where footsteps and voices are said to be heard with no one about.
• The Kennecott cemetery: About 50 grave markers for people who died in the camp; visit quietly.
• The McCarthy Road: The road to Kennecott follows parts of the old railroad grade, where the vanishing tombstones are said to appear.

Visiting Kennecott

Getting to Kennecott is part of the experience. Take the Edgerton Highway through Chitina, cross the Copper River and follow the McCarthy Road, a long unpaved road that can be muddy, slippery and hard on tires, to its end at the Kennicott River. A footbridge crosses the river to McCarthy, and from there Kennecott is 4.5 miles further, on foot or by shuttle. You can also fly into McCarthy’s gravel airstrip. Plan on at least two days.

Once there, you can walk the town and visit the National Park Service visitor center in the old Blackburn School. The only way inside the 14-story concentration mill is the Kennecott Mill Town Tour run by St. Elias Alpine Guides, about two hours long, from late May to mid-September. It involves steep stairs, ladders and low headroom, and costs about $36 for adults and $18 for children. Lodging is available in McCarthy and Kennecott in summer, and camping is allowed near the end of the road. Most services close for the winter.

• Visiting Walk or shuttle 4.5 miles from McCarthy after crossing the Kennicott River footbridge at the end of the McCarthy Road
• Tours Guided Kennecott Mill Town tours (about 2 hours) by St. Elias Alpine Guides, late May to mid-September; NPS visitor center in the old Blackburn School
• Hours and season Most services operate in summer only
• Tickets Mill town tour about $36 for adults, $18 for children
• Ghost hunting No; it is a national park site

Tips for your visit

• Bring a full-size spare tire and a proper jack for the McCarthy Road.
• Book the mill town tour ahead; it is the only way into the great mill.
• Stay overnight so you can walk the town in the long evening light after the day visitors leave.
• Visit the Kennecott cemetery respectfully; it is a real burial ground.
• Ask rangers at the Blackburn School visitor center about the town’s history; they tell it better than any ghost story.

More haunted places nearby

• Gakona Lodge: a century-old roadhouse with ghost stories, on the way from the Richardson Highway
• Haunted places in Anchorage: the nearest city, with haunted hotels and a haunted auditorium
• Haunted hotels in Alaska: historic hotels with ghost stories across the state
• Haunted places in Alaska

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Wikipedia: Kennecott, Alaska
• Senior Voice Alaska: Haunting stories swirl around Kennecott Copper Mine (2025)
• Anchorage Daily News: Notoriously haunted Alaska places (2012)
• Atlas Obscura: Kennicott ghost town
• St. Elias Alpine Guides: Kennecott Mill Town Tour
• National Park Service: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
• Princess Lodges: 'Scary Mary' and other ghost stories from Alaska