On January 20, 1925 doctors in Nome had diagnosed cases of diptheria among the citizens of the town, many of them children, so an urgent telegraph message went out calling for antitoxin.
A message went to Nome telling them that a team of sled dogs had to get the medicine in the town of Nenana. Nenana is where the train line ended, and that's as far as the medicine could go. From Nenana a group of sled dog mushers, in relay, had to race more than 600 miles in order to get it to Nome. The first team departed on January 25, 1925.
On Febuary 2, 1925 the last team in the relay made it to Nome. The town was saved! The 647 mile trip was made in about 127 hours.
Historian Dorothy Page, who lived in Wasilla, was serving as chairman of the Wasilla Knik Centennial Committee in 1964. Dorothy envisioned that the opening of the Iditarod Trail would be a spectacular centennial year project. The Iditarod Trail began in Seward during the gold rush days and ran to the Iditarod gold camp and from there on to Nome. Most people she approached thought she was crazy. But when she approached musher, Joe Redington, he thought it was a great idea. The plan was to open a trail a little each year with the trail eventually being open for the entire distance. The first race was held on March 3, 1967, the 100th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia. A prize of $25,000 was offered to the winning musher. 58 mushers signed-up for the race, which was named the "Iditarod Trail International Championship Race," because they said someday it would attract mushers from all sections of Alaska, the smaller states and even foreign countries. The race was a two-day event, starting on Saturday in Knik and going to Big Lake. On Sunday the mushers raced from Big Lake back to Knik, a total distance of only 50 miles. Isaac Okleasik of Teller won the race. It took the committee the next year to get out of debt.
Interest in the race waned for a time until 1973 when Joe Redington decided that they had to find a way to run the race the entire distance. With some assistance from the Army Corp. of Engineers, the trail was cleared and on the first Saturday in March, 1973 the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race left Anchorage with 34 mushers. The dog teams followed the trail to Nome covering a distance of 1,049 miles. Today, the trail usually involves covering a distance of 1,100 miles. The Iditarod Trail traverses two mountain ranges, runs along the Yukon River for about 150 miles and crosses the pack ice of the Norton Sound. The first Iditarod was won by Dick
The race ceremonially begins is Anchorage on the first Saturday in March travels a distance of fifty miles and then begins anew on Sunday from some place designated by the race committee. The first Iditarod to cover the entire distance from Anchorage to Nome was won by Dick Wilmarth of Red Devil, Alaska. He finished the race in 20 days. The current record is held by Martin Buser who, in 2002, covered the distance in 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2seconds beating the record set by Doug Swingley in 2000. The prize won by Martin, who is a four-time winner, was $62,857 and a new Dodge pickup.
The Iditarod Trail pits the competitors against each other, but also against the wilderness and brutal weather. The race celebrates Alaska'a frontier past and the adventurous spirit in all of us.
"The Last Great Race on Earth"
