Iditarod Trail named after the now-abandoned town of Iditarod, commemorates the last great gold rush in America to the Iditarod gold fields and the critical role that dogs played in the settlement and development of Alaska. It is a common myth that the race commemorates the dogsled relay known as the 1925 "Serum Run" from Nenana to Nome. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was first established by Joe Redington, Sr. in the early 1973 to encourage the designation of the Iditarod Trail as a National Historic Trail, bring the dying tradition of dog sledding back to the villages of Alaska, and
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Avenue and D Street in Anchorage and in smaller numbers at the checkpoints along the trail. The race's namesake is the Iditarod Trail, which was designated as one of the first four US National Historic Trails in 1978. The trail in turn is named for the town of Iditarod, which was an Athabaskan village before becoming the center of the Inland Empire's Iditarod Mining District in 1910, and then becoming a ghost town at the end of the local gold rush. The name "Iditarod" may be derived from the Athabaskan "haiditarod", meaning "far distant place". Portions of the Iditarod Trail