The Irish who helped build the trans-Alaskan oil pipeline

        November 30, 2018 The Irish Times | Alaska | fossil fuels: pipelines

After oil was discovered in 1968 at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope – the largest oil strike in American history – a number of Irish immigrants arrived to help build the 800-mile Trans-Alaskan pipeline system to the ice-free port of Valdez. TAPS construction employed as many as 50,000 workers from 1974 to 1977, easing the 1970s fuel crisis.