Glenn Highway

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The Glenn Highway (part of Alaska Route 1) is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, extending 187 miles (301 km) from Anchorage to Glennallen on the Richardson Highway. The Tok Cut-Off (q.v.) is often considered part of the Glenn Highway, for a total length of 328 miles (528 km).

The highway originated as the Palmer Road in the 1930s, to reach the agricultural colony at Palmer. During World War II it was completed to Glennallen as part of a massive program of military road and base building that also resulted in the Alaska Highway, and connected Anchorage to the continental highway system.

It is named for Captain Edwin Glenn, leader of an 1898 U.S. Army expedition to find an Alaska route to the Klondike gold fields (the eventual Richardson Highway). The highway was paved in the 1950s.

The Glenn Highway is the only road access to Anchorage for most of the state (with the exception of the Kenai Peninsula on the Seward Highway), and as such is the main traffic corridor for Anchorage's suburbs in the Eagle River-Chugiak and Mat-Su areas. The longest stretch of freeway in Alaska runs mostly along the Glenn Highway, beginning in north Anchorage, continuing onto the Parks Highway at the interchange of the two roads, and ending in the city limits of Wasilla, for a total of approximately 38 miles.