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Rogge helped haul Alaska into new era
JUDY FERGUSON


Gene Rogge stands with his first Sourdough Express truck in 1942 on 12th Avenue. The building in the background is the Sourdough Express garage.


A breed of men apart Gene Rogge, Jess Bachner, Al Ghezzi, the O'Learys, Bayless and Roberts, among othersestablished trucking from Valdez to Fairbanks, the forerunner of a modern industry. Beginning as high school kids hauling fuel as an odd job, they ``invented'' commercial freighting in Alaska's frontier. This is the first in a three-part series.

One-time owner of Alaska Freight Lines, Sourdough Express and Sourdough Freighting, Gene Rogge, now 89, is an energetic, bright-eyed gentleman. He was the foundation and the capstone of Alaska trucking.

Rogge, like some other high school graduates in 1929, bought a truck and began freighting firewood and fuel locally. He and his friends, Jess Bachner, Charlie Simmons, Bob and Andy Growden and Al Ghezzi met occasionally at O'Leary and Jewel trucking on the site of today's Royal Fork restaurant. With John Roberts, Otto Bayless, Maurice O'Leary and Wilbur Jewel, they drew lines on maps and discussed possible work. Rogge fired up his wooden-spoked, 1-ton Chevy pickup and began the first of a lifetime of Valdez-to-Fairbanks runs.

At Paxson's roadhouse on the new Richardson Highway, Dan Whitford greeted Rogge, hollering, ``Hey, finally we're going to get some traffic on this road!''

During the next few years, Rogge ``worked 24 hours a day,'' to buy a $900 new Willy. The Richardson ``highway'' as yet had no bridges so Rogge plunged his new car through the Alaska Range's creeks. He was also testing the waters of love with Pat Hering, the daughter of the owners of Sourdough Express. In 1935, brothers Larry and Gene Rogge, bought the company. Adding 17 trucks, they extended the company's circuit from Valdez to Circle. All these young freighters, Ghezzi, Bachner, Simmons and Rogge routinely dealt with overflow, whiteouts, open rivers and failing carseverything but federal controls.

Sandwiched between the territorial Alaska Road Commission and the federally owned railroad, Gene fought for independent truckers in the spontaneous Truckers' Rebellion. The ARC, in 1941, began charging $9.27 a ton for commercial loads to cross the Tanana River at Big Delta, intending to direct the freighters' business to the struggling railroad. Between federal entities, these ``gypsy'' truckers known as ``gypos''were dispensable.

Risking jail, Gene, Charlie Simmons, Otto Bayless and several others outmaneuvered the questionable toll. The men built their own depot and ferry at Big Delta. Flying the pirate flag, the truckers appointed Bayless as their official ferryman. With a boat pushing their ferry, they circumvented the ARC's expensive ferry.

The dramatic interruption of World War II put an end to the federal trivialities. The new military highway was immediately pushed through and a bridge built across the Tanana.

Constructing new air bases as well, materials were trucked to Northway, Dry Creek, Tanana Crossing, Big Delta, Fairbanks and Anchorage. Working day and night, the truckers earned a financial base, developing what later became Alaska's major transportation companies.

In 1943, Sourdough Express, Ghezzi Trucking and several other small operations formed Alaska Freight Lines. Together, they ran 163 trucks. A band of very independent men however, their partnership lasted one year. Until 1949-50, Alaska trucking was seasonal only out of Valdez. Insisting it was impossible to keep Thompson Pass clear of snow, the Alaska Road Comission refused to keep the pass open.

John Clarke, Al Ghezzi's chief foreman, lived in Thompson Pass during the winter of 1949-50 and he bulldozed the snow continually. By spring, year-round trucking had become viable and the trucking industry began to thrive.

With the corridor to Valdez open and the new military highway connecting to Seattle, Gene sold the local delivery service of Sourdough Express. He and his brother established Sourdough Freight, carrying the more lucrative, postwar materials from Seattle and Valdez.

In 1954, President Eisenhower authorized the construction of the Distant Early Warning System. The DEW Line radar sites were spaced across Alaska and Canada to Greenland.

Seeing both a boom and statehood coming, Rogge secured the necessary transportation permits. These were not required by the territory but he anticipated that if Alaska became a new state soon, commercial trucking permits would be critical and difficult to obtain from the Interstate Commerce Commission. Others in his business were caught unprepared when statehood happened.

Accepting the ``harness'' of the federal government was impossible for self-willed men like John Clarke. He and several others felt that the ushering-in of the Interstate Commerce Comission with statehood in 1959 was an excellent time to quit.

Clarke and others bailed between two speculated boom periods. Seismic exploration and oil leasing had significantly begun in 1957 and increased quickly. Knowing that an oil boom might lay just ahead, Rogge and his Alaska Carriers Association built sophisticated off-highway vehicles to carry materials to Prudhoe Bay in the far north. They pushed for the Hickel Highway, a proposed route through Anaktuvuk Pass, a path for Interior truckers to access the North Slope.

However an invisible wall lay ahead. In 1966, U.S. Representative Morris Udall's bill ``froze'' Alaska's public lands, putting the breaks on all overland, off-highway freighting.

When the land was re-opened in the early 1970s, big oil companies and their own trucks had seamlessly squeezed out the independent gypos.

However, Rogge had secured the hard-to-obtain commercial trucking permits. It was a good time to lease those, lean back and leave the driving to those who succeeded him, Bachner, Clarke and Ghezzithe road rogues.

Judy Ferguson is a free-lance writer living in Delta Junction.


Art Hering stops at 12 Mile Summit in 1935 when he drove for Sourdough Express.

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