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Hadukovich had other business interests, including prospecting, freighting, acting as a hunting guide by taking hunting parties into the nearby Granite Mountains, and trading with, and advocating for, the Athabaskan natives, (later being instrumental in creating the Tetlin Reserve) as well as the responsibilities of US Game Commissioner for the area, and was not able to personally operate the roadhouse full time. As with many informally managed roadhouses, Hadukovich asked travelers to "make themselves at home and leave some money on the table" for what they used. Despite this informality, the operations prospered.

In 1906, or perhaps sometime after, Jovo 'John' Hajdukovich, an enterpreneur who had come to Alaska from Montenegro in 1903, sensed a business opportunity and purchased the trading post and roadhouse from Maxey. Hajdukovich built a new and bigger roadhouse in 1909 using logs floated downriver, but he continued to use the old trading post to store his gear. A trading post was constructed on the south bank of the Tanana, at Bates Landing in April 1904 by a prospector named Ben Bennett on his claim of 80 acres (32 ha), but Bennett sold the post and land to Daniel G. McCarty in April 1905. However since E.T. Barnette, the founder of Fairbanks, and McCarty's former employer, had financed the goods in the post, Barnette retained ownership of them. The post property, now being used as a roadhouse, soon became known as McCarty's. Another prospector named Alonzo Maxey, and a friend, built Bradley's Roadhouse to compete with McCarty's and by 1907, McCarty's had been transferred to Maxey.

The Tanana River was one of the major rivers to be crossed along the Valdez-Eagle trail. A ferry was established just upriver of the Tanana's confluence with the Delta River, at a location then called Bates Landing. Bates Landing was about 12 km (8 miles) north of the current settlement of Delta Junction, in the area known now as Big Delta. The government collected a ferry toll on the south side from all those traveling northbound. The WAMCATS telegraph line was relocated to parallel the trail after a fire. McCarty Station was established at the line's crossing of the Tanana in 1907 to maintain the telegraph. Several log cabins housed the telegraph office, a dispatcher, two repairmen and their supplies.

The roadhouse is named after Rika Wallen, who obtained it from John Hajdukovich and operated it for many years. It became a hub of activity in that region of the interior. With the construction of the ALCAN (now Alaska) Highway and the replacement of the ferry with a bridge downstream, patronage declined. The roadhouse is in the Big Delta State Historical Park and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Rika's Landing Roadhouse, also known as Rika's Landing Site or the McCarty Roadhouse, is a roadhouse located at a historically important crossing of the Tanana River, off mile 274.5 of the Richardson Highway in Big Delta, in the Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Alaska, United States.

Starting in 1904 the trail was in the process of being upgraded. In 1907, or certainly by 1910, the Alaska Road Commission completed the upgrade, upgrading the trail to a wagon road. The head of the project was Major (later U.S. Army General) Wilds P. Richardson, for whom the highway was later named. Stages plied the road, using horse drawn sledges in winter and wagons in summer. By 1913 the roadhouse was a local center of activity for gold prospectors, local hunters, traders, and freighters.