Blattner Construction/Miners - D.H. Blattner & Sons, Inc.
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The Alcan Highway

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced plans to construct the Alaska-Canada (Alcan) Highway. Among the 7,500 civilian contractors called to the endeavor were crews from D.H. Blattner & Sons.

Erv Blattner and his team loaded their equipment on railway cars and set out to build a road through a critical 235-mile stretch of wilderness between Ft. St. John and Ft. Nelson, British Columbia.

Hard work and perseverance

Working 10-12 hours a day, D.H. Blattner & Sons would finish 10 miles of road, jump past the next contractor and build another 10 miles. Conditions were tough—even for Minnesotans who were used to facing isolation and adversity. Crews lived in army tents, cooked their own meals, and battled mud, snow, sleet and rain to push the two-lane highway across the Northern Canadian Rockies.

To this day, the continued dedication of D.H. Blattner & Sons employees fuels the company's ability to succeed where others fail.

At the train station in Albany, Minn., with equipment bound for the Alcan Highway, 1942.
At the train station in Albany, Minn., with equipment bound for the Alcan Highway, 1942.
The Blattner Family of Companies includes Blattner Holding Company and its several subsidiaries, including, but not limited to, Blattner Energy, Inc., and D.H. Blattner & Sons, Inc. In order to make this website more user friendly, the material in this website does not always identify the entity that has or is currently undertaking the various business activities described by this website. The precise meaning depends on the context. For more information regarding this matter, please contact the company.