The Historic Preservation of Donnely Dome

The Donnely Dome was designed by MIT engineers, then built in the 1950's as part of the government's Dew Line. It was used to monitor Russian aircraft intrusion into Alaskan airspace. A great cold war relic, the dome is a fantastic reminder of our nations involvement with the cold war.

Fairbanks Gold acquired the dome in 2004. John and his son Kinzey dismantled the dome and brought it to Fairbanks, then rebuilt it across from the Pipeline visitors station.

The dismantling and reconstrctuction of this dome was done without the benefit of blue prints. This might not seem significant to the passerby, but if you look at the intricate way the dome was built, coupled with the fact that John and Kinzey aren't rocket scientists, they ran into relatively few problems. They developed their own numbering system.

This was an incredibly complex job that required all our brain power and quite a bit of muscle too.