Robert Edwards Sheldon Jr. (June 3, 1883 – January 4, 1983) was an American automobile enthusiast, businessman, government official and politician.
As a boy, Sheldon accompanied his father to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush and remained there the rest of his life.
[1] The year after his mother died, Bobby and his father joined the gold rush in Alaska, travelling by steamship from Seattle and arriving in Skagway in December, 1897.
[3] Sheldon had never seen an actual automobile, only pictures, but in 1905 he decided to build his own to compete for the affection of a young woman whose other suitor carted her around in a fancy horse-drawn carriage.
[1] Sheldon built his automobile from any parts he could scavenge: scraps of tin, mining lamps, bits from porter carts, seats from barstools, and a marine engine from a sunken boat.
[7] In 1913, Sheldon imported the first Model T Ford to Alaska; it travelled by rail to Seattle, then was carried by boat to Skagway.
[1] While on vacation, Sheldon used his car to transport people from rural areas into town, saving them a trip in a buckboard wagon pulled by horses that would usually take them several days.
When the power plant declined to extend his vacation, Sheldon quit his job, believing that he could establish a regular auto stage line if his venture was successful.
Sheldon had to detour from the trail in some locations due to slides and washouts, and used a block and tackle to get across several obstacles.
[3] He ran Sheldon's Auto-Stage Line (later called the Richardson Highway Transportation Company) from 1913 to 1926, operating 15 Model T automobiles.
After Eielson took the wheel and ran the vehicle at full speed (20 miles per hour) over bumps and culverts, Sheldon advised him to stick to flying airplanes.
Sheldon made it safely ashore while the car floated down the creek into the Delta River, for which he was kidded for several years after.
[9] Sheldon sold his share of the transportation company in 1926 as competition from the newly completed Alaska Railroad attracted more passengers.
[10] Years later, as Alaska's Road Commissioner, Sheldon pursued improvements to the Valdez Trail, which is now the Richardson Highway.
[14] On August 20, 1922,[2] Sheldon married Anne Bergman, who had moved from Everett, Washington to Fairbanks with her family in 1910.