Area residents call it a place for peace and quiet, not the wild west

BUTTE— When someone asks you about the Butte community, what comes to mind? Some may say it’s a place to have fun, be it for an outdoor adventure. Some might say it’s a “wild, wild west” out there where people go to be left alone or get into trouble. So the question remains, how does the Butte community compare to other communities around the Mat-Su Borough?

“Let’s put it this way, when you tell people you live in the Butte, they automatically think you live in a wild, wild west. That’s what everybody thought of it,” Mat Valley Properties LLC owner and longtime Butte resident Richard Stryken said.

The Butte community has a long history in the Matanuska Valley, long before the Matanuska and Susitna valleys were even combined to officially declare a borough. The area is named for the iconic mound of rocks hiked by thousands each year.

“The Butte is the mound of solid rocks sticking up. Butte is a name. When people start to embrace their community, it ceases to be a geological location and it becomes a name,” Jim Fox, a historian that grew up in Palmer as colony grandkid said by phone from Washington.

“A fire station and a school pretty much symbolizes you’ve become a community,” Fox said.

Fox left the borough almost 21 years ago but as a historian and small town, colony offspring, he has numerous friends, relatives, and memories at his disposal.

“We’ve always had a connection to the Butte,” Fox said.

Fox spoke about the history of the area.

“The first chapter of human occupation opens with the arrival of the Dena'ina who discovered a rich boreal [woodland] and maritime environment in which they continue to live. Their ingenuity was to live with the land and the environment and the game- live with it and respect, not fight against it,” Fox said.

Recreational areas like Jim Creek, Knik River, and Bodenburg Creek fall under the Knik River Public Use Area through the state, bordering private lands owned by Inc., an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act corporation. Locals and countless visitors from far and wide frequent the many acres bound in Butte, be it for a hike, camp, or test drive for their hot rod at the Alaska Raceway Park.

Chad Ragsdale, owner of Matanuska Cannabis Company said that his kids loved hiking the Bodenburg Butte hill and throwing rocks in Jim Creek. He said the Butte community is fairly proactive and typically takes action or speaks up quickly when there’s an issue be it an abandoned vehicle or new “drug house” and that they “know when these places pop up.”

“They should have that voice,” Ragsdale said.

Dwight Grossnickle, owner of Butte Salvage yard remembers how sparse the traffic was when he opened up in 1994. Thanks to the Valley’s overall population boom, more people are moving to the Butte. There is an influx of commuters, and more hunters, hikers and other recreational users. The Old Glenn Highway bustles each day, much like the Palmer Wasilla or Parks highways.

“Now, the road is very busy,” Grossnickle said.

Grossnickle used to haul about 150 vehicles a year from the Jim Creek area. He said that it changes year-to-year but overall it’s getting, “way better.” He sat inside his big, yellow loader, taking a quick break from crushing metal mounds together to consolidate space.

“I’m trying to get this place cleaned up and organized so I can start getting more local stuff,” Grossnickle said.

Butte is classified as a census-designated place within the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. It’s current, population grew from an estimated 3,246 people in 2010 to 3,560 in 2016, according to data from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development released in the Sept. 2017 edition of “Alaska Economic Trends.” That’s a 10 percent increase over six years.

“People moved out to the Butte because they could be in more of the wilderness and still be close to Palmer,” Fox said.

Like many places, justified or not, the Butte community has its stereotypes, some good and some bad. Similar to places like Meadow Lakes or Williwaw, Butte for whatever reason picked up a similar response in the general public.

“I think what the reality is that it’s probably more so than it used to be, I mean you’ve still got the drugs that are out there, it isn’t anything that’s new to here. It’s all over the place,” Stryken said.

Many Butte residents would disagree with the stigma, like Beth Truett, owner of the Green Store. She said she gets asked on a regular basis if she feels safe working late at night by herself at the store.

“It’s growing out here, just like the rest of the Valley is,” Ragsdale said. “I don’t think it’s a bad or good thing, that’s just how society is going.”

The Green Store was originally the Cash Camper in the 1970s, according to Truett. After several owners, moving from the other side of the street, she acquired the property. Now that tourist season is over, about 75 percent of the Green Store’s customer base consists of locals, according to Truett. She said that a majority of her issues with theft, vandalism and other crimes are transients with very few local people causing a problem.

“There’s such a stigma about the Butte. It’s changed even in the eight years I’ve had the store,” Truett said.

Ragsdale lives in Wasilla but he wants to move to the Butte with his family as soon as they get a chance.

“It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Ragsdale said. “As far as satellite communities go, it’s not as far away as places like Willow or Talkeetna, but it feels like it Willow or Talkeetna… It’s pretty too,” Ragsdale said

Ragsdale searched the Butte for a house to transplant his life into but couldn’t find anything this year. He said that now that his businesses is established and doing quite well, he is sure it’s only a matter of time before hid kids are going to Butte Elementary School, less than two miles away from his new store.

“Sooner or later, we’ll buy a house out here,” Ragsdale said.

Across the street from Ragsdale’s first harvest is the iconic, green building, the Green Store, which seems to orient the locals like the nearby Bodenburg Butte hill. The gas station/liquor/grocery store is located at the center of the community physically. To Truett, it’s the center of everything.

“It’s a truly beautiful place… I have seen firsthand what a great community this is every single day. I feel safe out here,” Truett said.

Burglaries are down in the Butte as well as the Mat-Su Valley, according to Alaska State Troopers Sgt. Ronald Hayes. He attributes this much of this trend off of a “gut feeling.” He credited home security systems, particularly the advent of online systems more and more people are utilizing right off their smartphones.

“They’ve really taken off,” Hayes said.

Hayes has data to compare crime statistics for the last three years.

“It comes in waves. It’s a combination for a multitude of things: you’ve got the opioid epidemic, you’ve got senate bill 91, we’ve got guys we’re putting in jail and the next day they’re out,” Hayes said.

There is a plot of land off Bodenburg Loop known as “The Compound.” It’s one of several properties commonly associated with illegal activity, predominately tied with drug use and theft. Places like these have their own nicknames depending on where they are throughout the borough, each community adopting nicknames. Hayes said that he and his team are aware of these “hot spots.”

“That’s one of several compounds that we know of in the Mat-Su Valley,” Hayes said. “[A “compound”] It’s usually a large plot of land and it’s frequented and lived on by known people that are in the drug trade or some criminal activities going on. It’s not a drug house they either have campers, cars, you find people a lot of the times when we go to these compounds are sleeping in their cars we served a warrant on the Butte compound last year. We found people sleeping under trampolines. We found people sleeping under tarps. We found people sleeping in cars. I mean, we had like 12 people we were trying to get out of this compound so you find them all over.”

Many people may try to attribute places like these compounds to the primary cause of a neighboring area’s issues with crime. Hayes sees multiple powers at work.

“I think it’s a little bit of both. I think there is some justification with any compound where we have crime in that area but I think it’s a little bit more complicated in that,” Hayes said.

Hayes said they know what people by the majority are concerned about: thefts and the burglaries. Hayes noted on the impact property theft can have on a victim, saying that people often feel violated and demand action be taken. He said that the Troopers often work with the same individuals or groups in and out of the system on a regular basis.

“These are justified emotions and they’re very strong. When you talk about thefts, when people start seeing it in these compounds, these other place, do we have spot spots in the Mat-Su Valley where we see higher levels of crime? Yes, but it’s all over. It’s all over. These people are, you know, they’re mobile they’re in vehicles. They’ll go anywhere in the MSV,” Hayes said.

Hayes has been a trooper since 2001. A majority of his career, about 90 percent he said, has been spent out here. He’s done many calls out in Butte and noted that a few officers live out there. He said that at the end of the day, its problems are essentially symptomatic of the Valley’s.

“I don’t think it’s any less safe than anywhere else in the Mat-Su Valley,” Hayes said.

Wade Mitchell camps by the Knik Bridge, right off the shore of the Knik River several times a week. As he puffed on his cigar, he affirmed that two vehicles a few yards away from his camper were in abandoned, one of them was left by some woman who drove through the river and got picked up by her brother. The vehicles have both have obvious signs of theft, with shattered glass on the ground.

According to Hayes, stolen cars are essentially the “Ubers for criminals” and an abandoned vehicle could have come from anywhere in the Valley or in many cases he’s seen, from Anchorage, Soldotna or further. These junked cars are usually a temporary ride for a short period of time.

“I like to come here because it’s so quiet and peaceful,” Mitchell said, puffing his cigar as the Knik River flowed past him.