Chena a huge advantage over Fairbanks. It supplied mines in the Chatanika River Valley 43 miles North. The railroad allowed Chena to supply mines that Fairbanks couldn’t realistically serve. Chena thrived as a railroad town. It built a sawmill, power plant, and major dock facilities with warehouses, repair shops, and businesses for the seasonal freight brought by riverboats. A telegraph station was built for the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), and connected the continental United States North to Eagle and Nome, Alaska. At its peak, the town had a hospital, school, city hall, dance hall, and 3 newspapers. One of the newspapers, The Tanana Miner, later became the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Chena relied so much on supplying mines and miners that it couldn’t last. The amount of gold in the Tanana Valley declined quickly, so miners left to make money elsewhere. World War I started in 1914, and many miners were sent to fight. This trend continued until there were hardly any people left in Chena. The Tanana Valley Railroad went bankrupt in 1917, and was bought by what is now the Alaska Railroad. The bankruptcy of the Tanana Valley Railroad marks the collapse of the town, but the Chena townsite wasn’t officially cancelled until July 14, 1921. Fairbanks survived the downturn that came when World War I broke out. In 1903, Judge James Wickersham transferred the Third Judicial District offices to Fairbanks. Additionally, he had the town linked to the new telegraph line from Tanacross to St. Michael. Judge Wickersham also encouraged E. T. Barnette to name the town after the running vice president, Charles Fairbanks. He believed that by doing so, the town would find favor with the vice president in the future. Fairbanks continued to grow and expand into a city during this time, while Chena was solely a mining town. These actions gave Fairbanks an advantage over Chena, and Chena collapsed in 1917 while Fairbanks only faced a setback. Chena would not formally be disincorporated as a city until 1973, although it had long since been abandoned. Ghost town Chena is now a ghost town. For a long time, no one even knew where it was. There are maps of the town from when it was successful, and a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of the commercial buildings. However, there are no surveys that give scale or specific locations. None of the original railroad tracks