Pipeline construction across eight hundred miles of Alaska required more than just pipe. The line included twelve pumping stations, and a new tanker port at Valdez. The pipeline project employed tens of thousands of people. It required the construction of the Dalton Highway. And it cost $8 billion dollars.
Thirty- two people died on the project.
In 1942 young soldiers and civilians had descended on Alaska to build the Alaska Highway. A generation later high wages on the pipeline drew a flood of young civilians who moved into thirty-one constructions camps distributed along the route. The workers called the collection of camps “skinny city”—a few hundred feet wide and eight hundred miles long.
Welders from Texas cooked steaks over makeshift grills made with acetylene torches. And they didn’t always get along with other contractors. Alaska State Troopers responded to break up brawls that grew into small riots.
A Teamster’s Union local ran warehouses; drove the buses that carried workers up and down the way; and drove the trucks that delivered material. The teamster’s control of tools and equipment led to occasional conflict with other contractors on the project—more brawls that occasionally occupied Alaska State Troopers.
Men called Operators worked heavy equipment on the project—bulldozers, cranes, drilling rigs… Operators joked about the sole qualification for being one of them. “Must be able to sit on a side boom at 40 below and not freeze up.”
In 1974 workers started on the massive marine terminal at Valdez. The next March workers laid the first section of pipeline at the Tonsina River.
In June 1977 engineers pressurized the first section of pipeline out of Prudhoe Bay with nitrogen and introduced oil behind it. Hot crude oil flowing through cold pipe could damage it, so the engineers introduced oil very slowly.
The first oil arrived in Valdez 31 days after it left Prudhoe Bay.