After crossing a bridge over Fortymile River’s Mosquito Fork, the Taylor Highway passes through Chicken, a regular stop for many traveling to Eagle or Dawson. Although supporting a population of only 10 residents, Chicken is rich in gold mining history and ideally located to take advantage of the Fortymile geography and Wild & Scenic River.
The community is 300 yards up Airport Road, a spur road that leads to two RV parks/campgrounds, two cafes, gift shops, a very lively saloon, two gas stations, tours, gold panning and recreations gold mining. During the summer, Chicken is an eclectic collection of miners, trappers, artists, wilderness adventurers and travelers from around the globe. The town still services gold miners from the Fortymile Mining District and provides a number of mining opportunities for visitors including recreational mining complete with equipment and guided tours of the dredges and historical town site.
Gold mining began in the area in 1886 and within 10 years a major prospect was discovered on the Upper Chicken Creek. Bob Mathieson’s discovery prompted him to quickly stake his claim and build a cabin. The area instantly became a hub of mining activity for the southern portion of the Fortymile Mining District with more than 700 miners working the streams between 1896 and 1898. The town’s name, according to one tale, originated at a meeting of the resident miners. When trying to come up with a name for the new tent city, somebody suggested Ptarmigan, since that chicken-like bird existed in great numbers throughout the area. All the miners liked it, but none of them could spell it. The town’s name has been Chicken ever since.
Although many miners left during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, Chicken remained a viable community. In 1906, Harvey Van Hook built the two-story Chicken Creek Hotel that served as a school in 1925 where Anne "Tisha" Purdy taught, the basis of Robert Specht’s highly acclaimed book Tisha. Eventually the hotel became a roadhouse and then a bunkhouse for the F.E. Company, a mining company that purchased it in 1953 and used it until the late 1960s.
The hotel still stands today along with a dozen other buildings of that era and the Pedro Dredge, a National Historic Site, which originally mined in the Fairbanks area before its move to Chicken in 1959. The dredge is one of the few in the state open to the public. There are remains of two other dredges in Chicken; the Cowden Dredge on the Mosquito Fork a few miles below town that is accessible by trail or boat, and some displayed pieces of the Jack Wade Dredge that was demolished in 2007.