Iditarod Trail in far less travel. The trail might have been forgotten except for the 1925 diphtheria outbreak in Nome. In one of the final great feats of dog sleds, twenty drivers and teams carried the life-saving serum in 127 hours. Today, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race serves to commemorate the part the trail and its dog sleds played in the development of Alaska. The Iditarod Trail was a trail that connected a point north of Seward, Alaska, where a forerunner of the Alaska Railroad ended, through Iditarod, Alaska and then to Nome. The trail was about long. The Iditarod Trail's
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race lead teams are often within a few hours of each other at this point. , the race has been decided by less than an hour seven different times, less than five minutes three times. The closest race in Iditarod history was in 1978 when the winner and the runner-up were only one second apart. The official finish line is the Red "Fox" Olson Trail Monument, more commonly known as the "burled arch", in Nome. The original burled arch lasted from 1975 until 2001, when it was destroyed by dry rot and years of inclement weather. The new arch is a