Copper River Highway
Copper River Highway is a State Scenic Byway in Alaska. Within Alaska it covers roughly 45 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along Copper River Highway with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
Alaska's Copper River Highway runs 49.5 miles from Cordova out across the Copper River Delta. It follows the graded route of the old Copper River and Northwestern Railway, built in the early 1900s by J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family to haul copper ore 196 miles from the Kennicott mines to Cordova's port; when the railroad shut down, the state converted much of its bed into today's highway. The road was headed for a junction near Chitina until the 1964 Good Friday earthquake collapsed a span of the Million Dollar Bridge, the 1,550-foot steel truss crossing built in 1910 that had carried the old rail line over the Copper River, and construction never resumed past it. Repaired in 2005 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the bridge remains a highlight near road's end, alongside views of Childs Glacier calving into the river. The delta itself is one of the Pacific coast's largest contiguous wetlands, drawing millions of migrating shorebirds each spring. A separate bridge failure has closed the highway partway out in recent years, pending replacement.
- Million Dollar Bridge
- Copper River Delta
- Childs Glacier
- 49.5 miles
- Copper River and Northwestern Railway
- Cordova
- shorebird migration
Plan a drive on Copper River Highway →
What is a State Scenic Byway?
State Scenic Byways are roads a state has formally recognized for their scenic, natural, historic or cultural value — each state's own curated collection of drives worth taking slowly.
Where to Stay along Copper River Highway
4 campgrounds and RV parks sit within about 5 miles of Copper River Highway.
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