David Reamer is a historian who writes about Anchorage. His peer-reviewed articles include topics as diverse as baseball, housing discrimination, Alaska Jewish history and the English gin craze. He’s a UAA graduate and nerd for research who loves helping people with history questions. He also posts daily Alaska history on Twitter @ANC_Historian.
History: The quicksilver genius of the simple phrase — “ton of gold” ship — helped sell a nation on the idea that gold fever might indeed be a rational, practical path to a fortune.
Histories of Anchorage: The opening of a café specializing in pie probably doesn’t seem like such a big deal these days. But in 1945, guaranteed pie stock was an innovation.
Histories of Anchorage: Mickey Knapp, Peggy Nystrom, Zula Swanson and Ceil Braund: Their professions encompassed the entire range of possibility, as did their approaches to city life in Alaska.
Histories of Anchorage: The breakthrough in the case of West High senior William Michael “Mike” Christian came in 1974, eight years after his disappearance.
The most shocking bit of trivia about the 1986 train movie starring Jon Voight is that it began as an original script by the legendary Japanese auteur, Akira Kurosawa.
Histories of Anchorage: Valley of the Moon park has a rambling history connecting the area’s original Dena’ina Athabascan inhabitants, prostitution, a famous author and his alleged daughter.
Histories of Anchorage: From 1939 to 1950, greater Anchorage grew from about 4,000 residents to 32,000. And all those people needed a place to stay.
Histories of Anchorage: Housing discrimination and economic disparities meant Black people and other minorities were barred from living in the very Anchorage neighborhoods that were hardest hit.
Alaska and Anchorage has a long history of union solidarity. In the midst of an Anchorage’s mid-century boom, restaurant workers scored a major win.
Anchorage history: Anchorage’s naming is a tale of not just what might have been, but of what came ever so close to being the name of this city.
Alaska history: It was cold and rainy afternoon when an unknown man approached the Coast Guard cutter with a painstakingly scrawled note: “SAGGON---THe PHeaNIX IV is in need of Help—Badly—Laying BiTe AT higgins point. Go ToniTe. She is Fish ByeR.”
Alaska history: Through the rest of the war, the FBI would cite Moennikes and Stanton manhunt as an example of how far they would go to close a case. It even became material for a comic book.
