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Mount Billy Mitchell is a prominent peak located in the Chugach Mountains, east of Valdez and west of the Copper River in the U.S. state of Alaska.〔 This mountain forms a prominent and easily visible landmark between mile markers 43 and 51 of the Richardson Highway, as the highway passes just to its west between Tonsina and the Thompson Pass (see photograph). Mount Billy Mitchell was named for William "Billy" Mitchell (18791936),〔 a brigadier general of the United States Army Air Service who is often referred to as the "father of the United States Air Force". ==Naming== In response to the Klondike Gold Rush, the United States Army established numerous military outposts throughout the District of Alaska. As a lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corps, Mitchell was stationed in Alaska at that time. On May 26, 1900, the United States Congress appropriated $450,000 in order to establish a communications system to connect the many isolated and widely separated U.S. Army outposts and civilian Gold Rush camps in Alaska by telegraph. Along with Captain George C. Brunnell, Lieutenant Mitchell oversaw the construction of what became known as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS). Construction of the WAMCATS system began in the summer of 1900. Stretching from Fort Liscum at Valdez in Southcentral Alaska to Fort Egbert at Eagle on the Canada–United States border to Fort St. Michael to Nome on the Seward Peninsula, construction crews completed the final overland connection south of Fairbanks on June 27, 1903. By the time WAMCATS was fully operational in 1904, the system included almost of overland telegraph cable, over of submarine communications cable, and a wireless telegraphy system crossing the Norton Sound to Nome. This telegraph line was the first to link American outposts in Eagle, Valdez and Nome with each other as well as to Washington, D.C. in the contiguous United States. Among the greatest logistical and technological achievements of its day, the WAMCATS included the first successful long-distance radio operation in the world.〔 A historical marker is located at a roadside highway turnout just north of where the Richardson Highway crosses the Tiekel River. Placed by the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, the text reads (see photograph): 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mount Billy Mitchell (Chugach Mountains)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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