Manley Hot Springs Town

The town of Manley Hot Springs may be one of the loveliest discoveries you'll make in Alaska. At the end of a long, lonely road, here's a gem of a town, full of friendly folks, well-kept log homes and luxuriant gardens. Located between Hot Springs Slough and the Tanana River, the community was first homesteaded in 1902 by JF Karshner, just as the US Army Signal Corps arrived to put in a telegraph station.

A few years later, as the place boomed with miners from the nearby Eureka and Tofty districts, Frank Manley arrived and built a four-story hotel. Most of the miners are gone now, but Manley's name - and the spirit of an earlier era - remains. In modern times the town has been a hotbed of high-level dog-mushing: champs like Charlie Boulding, Joe Redington Jr and four-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher have all lived here.