Rika's Landing Roadhouse

Early activity

The Tanana River was a key obstacle for those traveling the Valdez-Eagle trail. A ferry operated just upstream from where the Tanana meets the Delta River, at a spot called Bates Landing, about twelve kilometers north of today's Delta Junction in the Big Delta area. The government charged a toll on the south side for northbound travelers. After a fire, the WAMCATS telegraph line was moved to follow the trail, and in 1907, McCarty Station was set up at the Tanana crossing to maintain it.

A few log cabins housed the telegraph office, a dispatcher, two repairmen, and their supplies. In April 1904, prospector Ben Bennett built a trading post on an eighty-acre claim at Bates Landing on the river's south bank, but sold the land and post to Daniel G. McCarty in April 1905. However, E.T. Barnette, Fairbanks' founder and McCarty's former boss, had financed the goods inside, so he kept ownership of them. The property, now used as a roadhouse, became known as McCarty's. Another prospector, Alonzo Maxey, and a friend built Bradley's Roadhouse to compete, and by 1907, McCarty's had passed to Maxey.

Hajdukovich era

In 1906, or perhaps sometime after, Jovo 'John' Hajdukovich, an entrepreneur who had come to Alaska from Montenegro in 1903, sensed a business opportunity and purchased the trading post and roadhouse from Maxey. Hajdukovich built a new and bigger roadhouse in 1909 using logs floated downriver. He continued to use the old trading post to store his gear. Hadukovich had other business interests, including prospecting, freighting, acting as a hunting guide by taking hunting parties into the nearby Granite Mountains, and trading with, and advocating for, the Athabaskan natives.

(Later he was instrumental in founding the Tetlin Reserve.) After he was appointed as US Game Commissioner for the area, he could no longer personally operate the roadhouse full-time. As with many informally managed roadhouses, Hadukovich asked travelers to 'make themselves at home and leave some money on the table' for what they used. Starting in 1904, the trail was improved and upgraded.

By 1910, the Alaska Road Commission completed the upgrade, making the trail usable as a wagon road. Major Wilds P. Richardson led the project and later became the namesake for the highway. Stages plied the road, using horse-drawn sledges in winter and wagons in summer. By 1913 the roadhouse was a local center of activity for gold prospectors, local hunters, traders, and freighters.

Meanwhile, Erika 'Rika' Wallen, born Lovisa Erika Jakobson in 1874 on a farm near Örebro Sweden, immigrated with her sister in 1891 to the United States. They traveled to Minneapolis, Minnesota to join their brother Carl Jakobson. There they changed their last name to Wallen to distinguish themselves from the many other Jacobsons and Jakobsons. After Carl died in an accident, the sisters moved to San Francisco, which they heard was booming.

Rika took a job as a cook for the Hills Brothers coffee family, which lasted until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In 1916 Rika Wallen traveled to Valdez, reportedly 'because she thought Alaska would be like Sweden'.

Rika Wallen takes over the Roadhouse

After jobs cooking at the Kennecott copper mine and for a Fairbanks boarding house, Rika Wallen made her way to Big Delta. In 1917, or 1918, she was hired by Hadukovich to manage operations at his roadhouse, then still known as McCarty's. Although Hadukovich had many business interests, he was not always solvent. For example, in later years he failed to be paid for timber he supplied to the ALCAN Highway project due to not keeping adequate records.

In either 1918, or 1923, he transferred ownership of the roadhouse to Wallen for '$10.00 and other considerations,' presumably in lieu of back wages. Their friendship and partnership continued for many years; historians and writers have not been able to define their relationship. Following local custom of naming places for people, the roadhouse was soon named Rika's. At that time, the roadhouse had eleven bedrooms, a living room, and a large kitchen/dining area.

By 1925, Wallen had applied for US citizenship, and filed a homestead claim on 160 acre. She began growing food and raising livestock, including sheep, chicken, and goats. Sheep provided wool that she wove, and the goats provided milk, from which she made butter and cheese. She also raised silver fox, ducks, geese, rabbits and honeybees.

She cultivated grain by using a yoke of oxen for plowing. Rika was a talented farmer, and she successfully grew crops where others failed. She developed a heating and ventilation system for her stable to protect the livestock through the harsh winters. When Wallen bought the roadhouse, it still had packed dirt floors and rough wood walls.

To improve the interior, she scavenged wallpaper, sometimes using different patterns on different walls of the same room. She made a hardwood parquet floor from wooden kerosene crates collected from the freighters and boatmen who patronized the roadhouse. Her ability to grow crops and to make a pleasant space transformed the inn and its offerings. For meals, she provided fresh milk and eggs, berries, fish, game, and produce picked from the garden and nearby orchard.

Afterward, travelers could go to clean, comfortable beds in the multi-story building. A 1929 travelogue of the Richardson Highway described Rika's by the following: 'a commodious roadhouse boasting of such luxuries as fresh milk and domestic fowls.' About 1926, Rika added a wing, which she used for additional living space, a liquor store, fur storage, and the Big Delta (then known as Washburn) Post Office. She was appointed as the US postmaster and served until 1946. Eventually Wallen also homesteaded an adjoining piece of land, bringing her holdings to 320 acre.