Rogers-Post Site, Archaeological site near Utqiaġvik, Alaska

The Rogers-Post Site is a memorial near Utqiaġvik featuring two concrete monuments overlooking a lagoon where an aircraft went down. The monuments mark the location of a tragedy in 1935.

Will Rogers and Wiley Post landed at Walakpa Bay on August 15, 1935, while flying from Fairbanks to Barrow in fog. They spoke with a group of Alaska Natives and took off again, but the engine failed at about 50 feet and the plane fell into the lagoon. It was the first fatal air accident near Utqiaġvik. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The site takes its name from the two men killed here. Will Rogers was a humorist and commentator; Wiley Post was a pilot who held aviation records. The first monument was designed in Oklahoma, the home state of both, and its pink granite was quarried near the Rogers family home in Claremore.

The site lies about 11 miles (18 km) southwest of Utqiaġvik, on the north side of Walakpa Bay near the mouth of the Walakpa River. The Stubbs obelisk was moved into Barrow in 2016 because coastal erosion threatened its position, so check locally which memorials remain at the lagoon. Ground conditions on the tundra are soft and changeable.

The original monument contains granite from Oklahoma and its dedication was broadcast nationwide by radio. This widespread coverage made the ceremony a major media event of the 1930s.