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...
Holy Family Cathedral in 2014 In early 1915, anticipating construction of the Alaska Railroad, hundreds of job seekers hastily erected a boomtown along Ship Creek in Upper Cook Inlet. Many in the camp...
Anchorage’s Fourth Avenue Theatre as it looked in 1971 A few months ago, a funeral was held in Anchorage for the city’s Fourth Avenue Theater, Austin “Cap” Lathrop’s opulent re-imagining of what the...
Soon after Fairbanks was established, residents began clamoring for schools. In the fall of 1903 (even before the city was incorporated), a small private school opened. Thirteen students and their teacher met in a...
Old Federal Building in Fairbanks in about 2000 The book “Ghosts of the Gold Rush” recounts that many long-time Fairbanks residents believed the reason Fairbanks prospered and Chena City (at the confluence of the...
By the 1930s, residents of Fairbanks were fed up with the fires that plagued downtown. In its short life, the city had already experienced two district-consuming conflagrations and numerous other building fires. Consequently, in...
Architectural historian Alison Hogland, author of Buildings of Alaska, writes that the Lacey Street Theater, “is the finest Art Deco building in Fairbanks.” The theater has graced the corner of Lacey Street and Second...
The University of Alaska (established in 1915 as the Alaska College of Agriculture and School of Mines) sits on a ridge with a commanding view of the Tanana and Chena River flats. People...
