Abandoned Towns
The Pedro Dredge, a weathered gray bucket-line gold dredge with a long stacker boom, on a grassy flat below green hills at Chicken

Gold mining town

Chicken

A gold camp on Chicken Creek that has hung on since the 1890s. Twelve people lived here in 2020. In summer, three small businesses sell fuel, food and gold panning, and the private old townsite, with the schoolhouse from the book Tisha, is shown on guided tours.

64°04′24″N 141°56′10″W · ≈1,700 ft

Photo: Dave Bezaire & Susi Havens-Bezaire, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Lived in · closed for winter

Chicken is a tiny living town that runs mostly in summer. The Goldpanner's own page, read in October 2026, says it is closed from September 1, 2026, to May 20, 2027. The Alaska Department of Transportation says the Taylor Highway opens in April and stays accessible until mid-October, and Wikipedia says it is not maintained from mid-October to mid-March. The old townsite is private property and is seen on guided tours. Homes and mining claims are private too.

Overview

A gold camp that stayed

A log building in the old townsite, part of the Chicken Historic District, August 2012
A log building in the old townsite, part of the Chicken Historic District, August 2012 · Photo: Geoff0522, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Chicken sits on Chicken Creek near the South Fork of the Fortymile River, at about mile 66 of the Taylor Highway and 77 miles by road from Tok. Gold drew prospectors to the Fortymile country from 1886, and to Chicken Creek by the 1890s. About 175 people lived in or near the camp by 1898. The town took the creek's name. In 1896 the geologist Josiah Spurr wrote that the creek was named for the size of its gold, about that of chicken feed. A well-known story says the miners wanted to call the town Ptarmigan but couldn't spell it. Wikipedia calls that tale likely apocryphal.

A post office opened in 1902 or 1903, and the Chicken Creek Hotel went up in 1906. The camp's best years ran from about 1910 to the mid-1920s, with about 100 people nearby. In 1924 the territory took the second story off the hotel and made it a school. Anne Hobbs Purdy taught there around 1927, and her year became the book Tisha. The school closed in 1928. The Fairbanks Exploration Company set up a placer camp here in the 1930s and bought up land and buildings in the 1940s, and from 1959 to 1967 its Dredge No. 4, the Pedro Dredge, dug Chicken Creek.

Chicken never emptied. The census counted 41 people in 1940, 7 in 2010 and 12 in 2020, and Wikipedia says the summer brings more with visitors and mining. The old town became the Chicken Historic District in 2001. It is private and seen on summer tours, while the dredge stands at Chicken Gold Camp. That makes Chicken less a ruin than a seasonal outpost with a ghost town inside it.

Video

A night in a cabin and a morning on Main Street

Two brothers drive in from Denali late in the evening, past the Chicken Community sign, and check themselves into a self-serve rental cabin, with the Chicken Creek Outpost and the Pedro Dredge close by. Next morning they get coffee at the outpost, breakfast sandwiches at the Chicken Creek Cafe and look into the saloon, its ceiling hung with hats, before two local miners take them out to their camp to pan for gold. A man they meet repeats the story that the town is named Chicken because no one could spell ptarmigan. Wikipedia calls that likely apocryphal; the creek's name is older. The narration calls the Taylor Highway 66 miles of bumps, dirt and gravel; the Alaska DOT&PF says its first 60 miles are paved.

Play “I Stayed in the Loneliest Town in America” from YouTube
“I Stayed in the Loneliest Town in America”, by Tonio Guajardo on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

From Chicken Creek to the Taylor Highway

  1. Gold is found on the Fortymile River in 1886, and prospectors find gold on Chicken Creek on the U.S. side of the border. Sketches of Alaska dates the Chicken Creek strike to 1891; another account gives 1896. By 1898, about 175 people live in or near the camp.
  2. Geologist Josiah Spurr writes that the creek is named for the size of its gold, "about that of chicken feed (corn)."
  3. A post office opens. Wikipedia gives 1902; Sketches of Alaska gives 1903.
  4. The two-story Chicken Creek Hotel is built.
  5. Chicken's heyday. Census data suggest about 100 people in the immediate area, and the camp supplies the creeks around it.
  6. The territory takes over the hotel, removes its second story and turns it into a schoolhouse.
  7. Anne Hobbs Purdy teaches here, the year later told in the book Tisha. The school closes in 1928 for want of pupils.
  8. The Fairbanks Exploration Company sets up a placer camp in the 1930s and buys up land and buildings in and around Chicken in the 1940s.
  9. The F.E. Company's Dredge No. 4, the Pedro Dredge, built in 1938, works Chicken Creek.
  10. The dredge is moved to its present site, now the centerpiece of Chicken Gold Camp. It is listed on the National Register in 2006.
  11. The old townsite, about 3 acres with some 15 frame and log buildings from 1908 to 1967, is listed on the National Register as the Chicken Historic District. It is private property.
  12. The census counts 12 residents, down from 41 in 1940.

On the ground

The old town, the dredge and the strip

A miner's cabin with a rusted tin roof in the historic district, August 2012
A miner's cabin with a rusted tin roof in the historic district, August 2012 · Photo: Geoff0522, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Chicken today has three parts. The old townsite is the Chicken Historic District, about 3 acres with some 15 frame and log buildings from 1908 to 1967: bunkhouses, roadhouses and sections of the pipeline that once carried water from Mosquito Creek for mining. Among them is the old Chicken Creek Hotel, later the schoolhouse of Tisha. Sketches of Alaska says the townsite is private property and that tours run in summer, and the Goldpanner says it takes visitors to its historic sites. Older accounts also mention an old post office, homes and businesses from the 1900s, and buildings that sway and buckle as the ground freezes and thaws.

The Pedro Dredge, built in 1938 and worked on Chicken Creek from 1959 to 1967, stands at Chicken Gold Camp, which calls it a National Historic Site and keeps an outdoor museum of camp buildings and mining relics. Along the highway, the photos on this page show a short row of plank-fronted shops with a saloon, a café and a mercantile, a log post office and a gas station.

The historic maps below show the change. The 1899 Fortymile sheet, surveyed in 1898, marks "Chicken P.O." on Chicken Creek near its mouth on Mosquito Fork, with Franklin P.O. to the north. The 1956 Eagle A-2 sheet shows the town as a cluster of buildings on Chicken Creek, with dredge tailings along the creek, the Taylor Highway, a landing strip, the Chicken Fireguard Station by Lost Chicken Hill and cabins at a placer mine on Lost Chicken Creek.

  • Chicken Historic District: about 15 buildings from 1908 to 1967, private, seen on summer tours
  • The old Chicken Creek Hotel, later Tisha's schoolhouse
  • The Pedro Dredge (F.E. Company Dredge No. 4) at Chicken Gold Camp
  • Dredge tailings along Chicken Creek
  • Seasonal businesses and a post office on the highway
USGS topographic map of Chicken: the Taylor Highway crossing Chicken Creek, with buildings and the airstrip
USGS The National Map, topo. The Taylor Highway crosses Chicken Creek at the townsite.
Aerial view of Chicken: buildings and clearings along the highway and creek in spruce forest
Aerial imagery, same area. Buildings, clearings and mine workings along the highway and the creek.

Historic maps

Chicken on USGS maps, 1899–1956

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Chicken, 1899
Fortymile sheet, 1899, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Chicken is on the Taylor Highway (AK 5), which leaves the Alaska Highway 12 miles east of Tok. Both routes end on the highway in town. The Alaska DOT&PF's Taylor Highway page, read October 29, 2026, with the same wording since at least May 2025, says the first 60 miles are paved and the rest is gravel, and that the road opens in April and stays accessible until mid-October. Plan your fuel: the gas in Chicken is seasonal.

USGS topographic map from Tok northeast to Chicken with the route along the Alaska and Taylor highways

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From Tok77.5 miabout 2 h 02 min
  1. From Tok, take East Slana Avenue and East 2nd Street to the Alaska Highway (AK 2).0.2 mi
  2. Turn left on the Alaska Highway toward the Canadian border.12.2 mi
  3. Turn left on the Taylor Highway (AK 5) and follow it north to Chicken.65.0 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The Alaska DOT&PF's Taylor Highway page, read October 29, 2026, and worded the same in the Internet Archive's copy of May 23, 2025, says the first 60 miles are paved and the rest is gravel, which can be soft, wet or rough. It doesn't give the milepost where the pavement ends; Chicken is at about mile 66.
  • The highway opens in April and remains accessible until mid-October, per the DOT&PF; Wikipedia says it is not maintained from mid-October to mid-March. In winter, the town is reached by snowmobile or by air.
  • We have no dated report on this year's road conditions. Check Alaska 511 before you go.
  • The routes are computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us.

Photos

Chicken in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Chicken?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Chicken

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Alaska index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Wikipedia, "Chicken, Alaska", retrieved October 2026: coordinates, elevation, census counts, the 1902 post office, Spurr's 1896 note on the name, the Ptarmigan story as likely apocryphal, highway maintenance season.
  2. Wikipedia, "Chicken Historic District", retrieved October 2026: the 2001 listing, about 3 acres and 15 buildings from 1908 to 1967, the Mosquito Creek pipeline, the Pedro Dredge dates.
  3. ghosttowns.com, "Chicken", read October 2026: fact sheet, 175 people by 1898, remains, frost heaving, road and climate notes.
  4. Sketches of Alaska, "Tisha's schoolhouse and old town of Chicken, Alaska still attract visitors", May 16, 2013: the 1886 and 1891 strikes, the 1903 post office, the hotel and school, Anne Hobbs Purdy, the F.E. Company, the private townsite and summer tours.
  5. The Goldpanner, Chicken, read October 29, 2026: closed September 1, 2026, to May 20, 2027; historic site tours, gift shop, fuel, campground and hotel.
  6. Chicken Gold Camp & Outpost, read October 2026: the F.E. Company camp of the 1930s, the Pedro Dredge and the outdoor museum.
  7. Alaska DOT&PF, "Taylor Highway", read October 29, 2026, with the same wording in the Internet Archive copy of May 23, 2025: paved first 60 miles, gravel beyond, open April to mid-October.
  8. Tonio Guajardo, "I Stayed in the Loneliest Town in America", YouTube, posted June 13, 2026 (filming date not given): the cabin rental, the open cafe, saloon and outpost, the dredge and the miners' camp; checked against its captions and storyboard frames.
  9. Photos: Wikimedia Commons, credited below each one. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits