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Agricultural Experiment Station

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early twentieth century. Overland St.

A group of wood-framed, white-painted buildings occupies the site of an agricultural experiment station, operated by the U.S. government from 1899 to 1908. Beginning in 1899, in an attempt to test the feasibility of agriculture in Alaska, the U.S. Department of Agriculture established a number of experiment stations, where land was cultivated and crops carefully analyzed. Kenai's was not a success; it closed after only nine years.

The original buildings on the site included a one-and-a-half-story log cottage for the superintendent, a barn measuring 64 feet by 24 feet built from lumber salvaged from a cannery, and an implement shed covered with tin salvaged from another cannery. The property has remained in government hands and has been occupied by a variety of government agencies. The extant buildings, which appear to have been built by one of the later occupants, include a one-and-a-half-story house with a side-gable roof and a gable-roofed vestibule in the center of the front; an eleven-bay garage, built in two sections, and probably originally a barn; and another building, with several additions in the front, and a quonset hut added to the rear. All of the buildings are clad with novelty siding.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Alison K. Hoagland
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Data

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Citation

Alison K. Hoagland, "Agricultural Experiment Station", [Kenai, Alaska], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AK-01-SC066.

Print Source

Buildings of Alaska, Alison K. Hoagland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 122-122.

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