Tagged: Alaska

1915 Tanana Chiefs Conference was one of the first steps toward Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

1915 Tanana Chiefs Conference was one of the first steps toward Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

On July 5 and 6, 1915, one of the precursors to the 1971 meeting of Alaska Native elders to discuss the pending Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was held in Fairbanks, in the George...

World War II construction laid the groundwork for North Pacific Great Circle air route

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...

Seward’s Brown & Hawkins Store still standing after 117 years

Charles E. Brown and Thomas William “T.W.” Hawkins both came to Alaska in 1898. Brown entered the territory via the route pioneered by the Hudson’s Bay Company – the McKenzie, Rat and Porcupine rivers,...

Small draglines like this were once common at placer gold-mining operations. They were used for excavating and for loading elevated sluice boxes.

P&H dragline at Pioneer Park represents early 1900s industrial innovation

When gold was discovered in Alaska at the end of the 19th century, it was individual miners who initially exploited the resource using picks and shovels and other rudimentary equipment. As easy diggings disappeared,...

Talkeetna and the Alaska Commercial Company’s freighting gamble

Seward’s Jesse Lee Home fades to nothing with demolition of buildings

Seward’s Jesse Lee Home For Children passed into history at the end of 2020 when its remaining buildings were demolished. The first Jesse Lee Home, an orphanage and boarding school for Aleut children, opened...

Oscar Anderson House, Anchorage’s first permanent residence, is still standing today

Oscar Anderson House, Anchorage’s first permanent residence, is still standing today

Oscar Frank Anderson was a Swedish immigrant living in Seattle with his wife and three children in 1915. When he heard about the government railroad that would likely be constructed in Alaska from Cook...

SS Nenana’s $3 million restoration project starts this summer

This article is reprinted from the 1-14-2022 edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Photo and story by Amanda Bohman A 237-foot wooden steam-powered sternwheeler with five decks that was famous for plying Interior Alaska...

Phillips Field served Fairbanks aviation community’s needs for 40 years

Phillips Field served Fairbanks aviation community’s needs for 40 years

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...

Anchorage’s KENI radio transmitter building is an Art Deco gem

Alison Hoagland, in her book Buildings of Alaska, calls the KENI radio transmitter building at 1777 Forest Park Drive in Anchorage an “Art Deco gem.” Anchorage’s KENI radio station was a sister station of...

Cordova’s version of the Dragon and St. George’s

Cordova’s version of the Dragon and St. George’s

During Cordova’s early days (1908-1911), when it was a boisterous railroad boomtown, the religious and social needs of both construction workers and the more genteel town residents were served by an Episcopal social club...