"Throw All Experiments to the Winds": Practical Farming and the Fairbanks Agricultural Experiment Station, 1907-1915

Rochelle Lee Pigors
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:20:15 PDT

The objective of this thesis was to compile a succinct but comprehensive history of the establishment and progress of the Fairbanks Experiment Station from 1905 to 1915, and determine the station's influence on agriculture in the Tanana Valley. An extensive survey of the University of Alaska Fairbanks' archive records, experiment station documents at the National Archives of the Alaska Range in Anchorage, annual reports of the experiment station, Fairbanks newspapers, and the Congressional Record was completed and the literature evaluated. It was concluded that agriculture in Alaska was seen as a secondary industry to mining and fishing and was generally dismissed by Congress. Some Alaskans, however, took up the call for agriculture when mining slowed down and established an agricultural college, which renewed people's hopes for agriculture and saved the Fairbanks station from fading into history.