History of Alaskan aviation; bush pilots, development of airports, World War II aviation development, Northern Staging Route (WW II), North Pacific Great Circle Route, and more
We are entering the final week of the campaign to fund the printing of my book, “Interior Sketches III, More ramblings around Interior Alaska.” The campaign is in an excellent position – not...
In the past two days our Kickstarter campaign has met and then greatly exceeded our funding goal! Thanks to an article in Thursday’s Fairbanks Daily News-Miner newspaper, our Kickstarter campaign went from about $850...
The Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of my new book, Interior Sketches III, More ramblings around Interior Alaska historic sites,” just reached 50% funding after only one week. The campaign runs for another three...
The Kickstarter project to fund a first printing of my new book, Interior Sketches III, More ramblings around Interior Alaska historic sites, is now live and accepting pledges. The book features 70 historic...
In 1915 the southern edge of Anchorage was Ninth Avenue – with only undeveloped land beyond. In about 1917, vegetation was trimmed back along a one-block wide by 16-block long strip of land south...
Mines in the Wrangell Mountains, 65 miles east of Chitina and only a few miles south of McCarthy, were world-class copper producers during the early 1900s. However, by the 1930s the copper reserves were...
The plane in the drawing is a 1928 Stearman C3B, registration number NC5415. It is, along with planes such as Ben Eielson’s World War I-era Curtis Wright JN-4 (on display at Fairbanks International Airport),...
Immediately preceding and during World War II the Civilian Aeronautics Authority (CAA was the predecessor to the FAA) built and upgraded airports across the United States as part of a national defense program. Theresa...
Merle “Smitty” Smith, who is now known by his more colorful nickname, “Mudhole,” became enamored of flying at an early age. According to Lone Janson’s 1981 biography of him, Smitty, who was born and...
During Fairbanks’ post-World War II population boom, development pressure forced the relocation of the community’s airport, Weeks Field. The airport, less than a mile from downtown, moved eight miles farther away, to its present...
