There were no roads then between the two communities more than 1,000 miles apart, and there are none today. A train took the serum as far as Nenana. It was carried for the last 674 miles by dogsled. A relay of 20 mushers responded to the medical emergency -- a diphtheria epidemic.

 On March 2nd about 900 dogs and their mushers gathered on Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage to set off on a similar trip. This time it was simply for the adventure of it. Several were hoping to win some of the $300,000 prize money in the 24th running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race but most could not expect to even meet their expenses. (A local sports writer referred to $100,000 dog kennels in a story about a musher he described as an exception to that trend.)

 On the first day of the race, 60 mushers - most of them Alaskans but some from as far away as Norway, Italy and Japan - raced 20 miles from downtown Anchorage to Eagle River.

 The first day of the race doesn't really count. It's a concession to the crowds that line the wooded trail (which includes a few underpasses and overpasses) the racers follow for several miles through Anchorage. The dog sleds carry paying passengers (including former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley and New York socialite Mary Lou Whitney) for the first few miles, too. 

The rest of the race is through wilderness, and the audience then consists largely of a few intrepid reporters. The serious racing begins the second day when the race is restarted at Wasilla, about 50 miles northeast of Anchorage.

 Forty-nine of the 60 teams finished the race; the first of them arriving in Nome 9 days after the Wasilla restart.