The History of Anchorage, Alaska

ca 5,000
Earliest known human habitation

ca 1743
Russian traders establish trading posts in Western and Southcentral Alaska

1778
Captain Cook discovers and names the �River Turnagain�

1784
Three Saints Bay on

1790
Russian trading posts established for fur trade

1794
Captain George Vancouver explores Southcentral Alaska

1839
Dena�ina population decimated by smallpox

1867
United States purchases Alaska Territory from Russia

1880
Ivan Petroff compiles first census of Alaska

1888
Gold discovered along Turnagain Arm

1896
James Girdwood stakes placer claim at Crow Creek

1898
Congress extends Homesteading Act to Alaska

1902
Alaska Central Railway construction begins at Seward

1910
First cabins built on the flats of Ship Creek

1913
Alaska becomes a United States Territory

1914
Alaska Engineering Commission created

1915
President Woodrow Wilson authorizes Alaska Railroad Anchorage townsite auction

Pioneer School established as Anchorage�s first school

1916
First regulation baseball diamond and grandstands constructed
Joe Spenard holds first ice carnival on Lake Spenard
Railroad workers for Alaska Labor Union

1917
All-Alaska Mid-Winter Carnival first held

1918
First train between Anchorage and Seward

1920
Anchorage is incorporated as a city Leopold David begins first of three terms as Mayor of Anchorage

1923
President Warren G. Harding drives �Golden Spike� to complete the Alaska Railroad line from Seward to Fairbanks

1924
Eklutna Industrial School established

1925
Anchorage Golf Club organized

1926
First homestead established in South Anchorage by Thomas Hogan
Peter �Russian Jack� Toloff homesteads east Anchorage area

1929
Pioneer aviator Russell Merrill disappears while crossing Cook Inlet

1930
Merrill Field opened

1934
Construction begins on Providence Hospital by Sisters of Providence

1935
Robert Atwood becomes editor and publisher of Anchorage Daily Times
Matanuska Colony experiment begins

1937
First Fur Rendezvous held by Chamber of Commerce

1939
Providence Hospital opens

1940
Construction begins on Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base

1942
Whittier Tunnel completed

1946
Austin �Cap� Lathrop�s 4th Avenue Theatre opens doors

1947
Z.J. Loussac elected mayor of Anchorage

1949
First traffic lights installed on Fourth Avenue

1950
First �Carrs� grocery store opens in Anchorage
Marvin �Muktuk� Marston lays out Turnagain-by-the Sea

1951
Completion of highway between Anchorage and Seward

1953
Mount Spurr erupts for first time in recorded history

1954
Anchorage Community College opens

1956
Anchorage named �All-American City�

1957
Oil discovered at Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula

1959
Alaska becomes 49th state

1960
Alaska Methodist University begins classes

1964
Good Friday Earthquake

1965
Anchorage again named �All- American City� for earthquake restoration efforts

1968
Kincaid Park created from a former Nike missile site in South Anchorage

1969
Walter Hickel named to Presidential Cabinet post, a first for any Alaskan

1971
President Richard Nixon and Emperor Hirohito meet at Elmendorf Air Force Base

1973
Joan Kimura designs official seal of Anchorage
First modern Iditarod Trail race held

1974
Construction begins on trans-alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)

1975
4,000+ acre Bicentennial Park created in Southeast Anchorage

1977
Completion of TAPS at a cost of over $8 billion dollars

1982
The Oscar Anderson House, built in 1915, is restored and opened to public

1983
Heritage Land Bank created

1984
Anchorage named �All-American City� for third time

1985
State of Alaska purchases Alaska Railroad from federal government
Anchorage named a U.S. bid city for Olympic games

1986
Kincaid Outdoor Center opens

1992
Mount Redoubt erupts in August, covering Anchorage in volcanic ash

1994
Tommy Moe wins gold medal at Winter Olympics

1996
Arctic Winter Games held in Chugiak/Eagle River River

This �bibliographically enhanced� overview of the history of Anchorage includes access to research material available to local residents at the Alaska Collection of the Loussac Library, and to all others through the interlibrary loan system of your local library or through your local bookseller. Click on any link to see and read about some of the thousands of books available about Anchorage and Alaskan history.

Located in Southcentral Alaska on the shores of Cook Inlet, the Municipality of Anchorage is a unique urban environment situated in the heart of the wilderness. According to anthropological research using the Beluga Point Site located just a short distance from downtown Anchorage, human occupation of the Anchorage area occurred in three waves, the first in 3,000 BC, the second in 2,000 BC, and the third and last at the start of the new millennium. By the time of first contact with European cultures in 1756, the Eskimo people who had originally settled the area had been displaced by the Athabaskan Dena�ina people. This displacement has been estimated as early as 500 AD and as late as 1650 AD. It is estimated that more than 5,000 Dena�ina inhabited the Southcentral area at first contact with Europeans.

Russian explorers had established themselves in southern Alaska by 1784, but the English explorer Captain James Cook is credited with first exploring and describing the Anchorage area in 1778 during his third voyage of discovery. Mistaking one of the arms of the inlet for a river, Cook named it �River Turnagain�, later renamed Turnagain Arm by a subsequent British explorer, George Vancouver. During the next hundred years Russian trading activity increased in the Inlet, and Russian cultural influence increased. Then in 1867 problems at home forced the sale of Russian America to the United States for a sum of $7,200,000. Beginning in 1868 the Alaska Commercial Company began operating dozens of stations along Cook Inlet, and constituted the strongest organizational entity in the area. Until the advent of the Alaska Railroad, gold-mining activity throughout the Turnagain Arm and Kenai Peninsula promoted a steady influx of new inhabitants to Southcentral Alaska.

In 1915 President Woodrow Wilson authorized funds for the construction of the Alaska Railroad. Ship Creek Landing was selected as the headquarters of this effort, coordinated by the fledgling Alaskan Engineering Commission. A �Tent City� sprang up in the wilderness at the mouth of Ship Creek, and soon swelled to a population of over 2,000. On July 9, 1915, the Anchorage townsite auction was held, and over 600 lots in a fixed grid were sold for approximately $150,000. Although the area had been known by various names, in this same year the U.S. Post Office Department formalized the use of the name �Anchorage,� and despite some protests the name stuck.

Between 1915 and 1920 the federal A.E.C. maintained management responsibilities for the townsite of Anchorage, and during this time water lines were laid, a power plant was established , a rudimentary telephone system installed, and a sewer system was started. However, by 1920 pressure by local citizenry resulted in an election which led to the incorporation of Anchorage on November 23, 1920. The most significant event in the twenties was certainly the completion of the Alaska Railroad in 1923, which culminated in the first visit by a President to the Alaska Territory. On July 15, 1923, President Warren G. Harding drove the ceremonial golden spike to commemorate the completion. Throughout the twenties the railroad continued to be the mainstay of Anchorage�s economy.

During the thirties Anchorage rebounded from the loss of population and industry it had suffered during World War I. Air transportation became increasingly important to the welfare of the community. The original �Park Strip� landing field was replaced in 1930 by a new facility, Merrill Field, which had a beacon and a landing tower. In a few short years, Merrill Field became one of the busiest centers of civilian aircraft activity in the United States, a distinction which it still merits today. The local economy was also given a temporary boost by the influx of �colonists� sent to the Matanuska Valley by the Federal Relief Administration. Anchorage, as the base city for the Matanuska Valley, profited from the resources which were funneled through it in order to develop the colony.

The arrival of troops to Anchorage in 1940 marked a decade of growth based on military expansion for Anchorage. During the beginning of the decade, military construction doubled the population of the town and provided a boost to the local economy. By the outbreak of World War II the threat of Japanese invasion prompted continued expansion of military personnel and aircraft, and after World War II the pressures of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union ensured a continued heavy military investment in the Anchorage area.

The influx of defense spending during the 1950�s had a beneficial effect on both Anchorage�s population and business community. Between 1940 and 1951, Anchorage�s population expanded exponentially from 3,000 to 47,000, and so did the cost of living. The �Boom Town� of Anchorage also experienced a unfortunate rise in crime during this tumultuous growth period, a problem the city would fight for decades. The long-awaited completion of the road between Seward and Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm was completed in the early 1950�s by the Alaska Road Commission, opening the Kenai Peninsula to motor vehicle traffic.

The decade of the 1960�s began on the high note of Alaska�s attaining statehood in 1959. However,another less propitious event dominated Anchorage�s energy during these years. On March 27th, 1964, a natural disaster of incredible proportions struck Anchorage and Southcentral Alaska: the Good Friday earthquake. This earthquake measured 8.6 on the Richter scale, the largest ever recorded in North America and, because Anchorage lay only 80 miles from the epicenter damage to structures ran to the hundreds of millions of dollars. This disaster printed itself indelibly on an entire generation of Anchorage residents, who still vividly remember the tribulations and loss of life brought on by what is simply known as �The Big One.� Anchorage�s remarkable recovery from the ravages of this disaster dominated life in the latter half of the 1960�s.

The development of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields in northern Alaska and the building of the trans-Alaska pipeline system during the 1970�s proved a great boon to the Anchorage economy. Since Anchorage had already benefited from the 1957 discovery of oil at the Swanson River field in the Kenai Peninsula, it was a natural choice for the corporate headquarters of the large oil concerns involved in operating North Slope fields and the TAPS system. The oil industry contributed to Anchorage�s growth in the seventies and eighties both economically, by providing skilled employment opportunities for thousands, and culturally, by helping to fund many civic and cultural endeavors.

Also important during this time was the growth of the Anchorage International Airport. Anchorage�s unique geographical location between the two northern continents earned the sobriquet �Crossroads of the Air World.� By the end of the 1970�s the population of the greater Anchorage area had increased to 184,775, half the population of the entire state. In great part because of this rapid growth, in 1975 the two local governmental entities, the City of Anchorage and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough, combined to a new government, The Municipality of Anchorage. This new political entity stretched from Eklutna and Eagle River in the north to Portage in the south, from the Chugach State Park in the east to Turnagain and Knik Arms in the west, encompassing nearly 1,955 square miles.

The new government was built on the City Charter, written by a charter commission and endorsed by area voters in 1975. As a unified government, the Municipality became responsible for the services often provided in other states by both a city and a county. The Charter Commissioners designed a strong mayoral system with eleven Assembly members who serve as the legislative branch. The executive branch is lead by the Mayor, responsible for appointing top executives, including a Municipal Manager, responsible for running day-to-day government business. The Assembly assumed all legislative responsibilities, acting on all new ordinances and amendments, as well as budgets, Municipal contracts, and appointments. A compilation of Municipal ordinances can be found on-line in the Anchorage Municipal Code.

On September 26-27, 1971, a particularly unique moment in history occurred at Elmendorf Air Force Base, when then President Richard Nixon met with Emperor Hirohito of Japan. This remarkable meeting marked the first time in Japan�s 2,000 year old history that their reigning monarch set foot on foreign soil. Today a monument on the site commemorates the event. In 1973, the first modern Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was held, and today the image of the race start from downtown Anchorage is televised annually throughout the world.

The decade of the eighties was also a time of growth for Anchorage, especially for its infrastructure and quality of life. Thanks to a flood of North Slope oil revenue into the state treasury, between 1980 and 1987 nearly a billion dollars worth of capital projects were constructed in Anchorage. These included a new library, civic center, sports arena and performing arts center. An aggressive beautification program combined with far-sighted community planning helped add to the large number of parks already established in the area, bringing the total to over 180. An unparalleled system of trails was created, culminating in the Coastal Trail which made the Anchorage coastline available to runners, skiers and bikers from Ship Creek to Point Campbell. By the beginning of the 1990�s Anchorage could boast of maintained trails. Hilltop Ski Area was established in 1984, which along with the Alyeska Ski Resort in Girdwood and Alpenglow Ski Area gave residents three fully operational skiing areas. Tourism and recreational activities were fast becoming a mainstay of the modern Anchorage economy, which has continued to the present day.