On August 2nd, 1924, a fire broke out in the power plant in Kennicott, the world’s leading producer of copper in the world. The steam-powered power plant produced electricity for the mines in the mountains, the Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode, and Erie, as well as for the town that had sprung up to house and […]
The first oil flowed into the Alyeska pipeline on June 20th, 1977 and began it’s 800-mile journey through a 48-inch wide pipe from Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez at 4 miles an hour. In the Port of Valdez, a 1,000-acre facility, across the bay from the city of Valdez, the S.S. ARCO Juneau […]
After three days of fighting a raging wildfire that swept down the hillside threatening to burn the town, the residents of Skagway finally breathed a collective sigh of relief when the fire was finally put into check. While many community members could finally step back from their firefighting efforts, 200 people were left on the […]
On July 24th, 1897, President McKinley appointed the District of Alaska’s first ex-officio Secretary/Surveyor General. The position would remain throughout Alaska’s district status that ended in 1912 and continue on throughout Alaska’s territorial designation until 1959. It was then that as Alaska gained statehood that the position was changed to Secretary of State. That new […]