History
The Iditarod Trail was a major lifeline for Alaska from the first gold strike in 1880 until the late 1920s, when the airplane replaced the dogsled as the main method of bringing supplies to Alaska's interior and, during the winter, from the terminus of the Alaska Central Railroad line to ice-bound harbors.
The trail became nationally famous in 1925, when a relay system of 20 dogsled teams brought 300,000 units of diphtheria antitoxin 674 miles from the train station in Nenana to Nome in one hour less than a week, undoubtedly saving thousands of lives. Balto, the lead dog on the last relay team, was memorialized with a statue in New York City's Central Park.
Even after planes and bush pilots took over the longer supply routes, dogsleds were still used on many short and medium-range trips until the advent of the snowmobile in the 1960s.
Dorothy Page conceived the idea of a race along part of the old Iditarod trail in 1964, when she was helping to plan Alaska's 1967 centennial celebration. The first race, of about 56 miles, was held in 1967 and it was repeated in 1969.
Plans were then laid for a longer race, to the ghost town of Iditarod itself, in 1973. In the meantime, the U. S. Army re-marked the almost forgotten trail during cold weather maneuvers in 1972, and organizers decided to proceed with a much longer race, from Knik to Nome, retracing the first long-distance dogsled mail route of 1910.
There were scoffers, but the Iditarod has become of the world's best-known sports events. Since 1983, the ceremonial starting point has been in downtown Anchorage, but the actual start is the following day at Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.
The race follows a northern route in even-numbered years and a soother route in odd-numbered years. The course is about 1,150 miles long.