Celebrating 64 years of serving the Mat-Su

This is a big day for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

It was 64 years ago that Viola Daniels published the first issue of this newspaper on Sept. 17. 1947, after quitting her job at the Anchorage Times to start the “Valley Frontiersman.”

You can still — carefully — read that first issue in our archives, as well as most other editions we’ve published over the ensuing decades.

On the front page of that first edition are nine news items and a form folks could use to subscribe for the next month for 75 cents.

The top headline, “Decision Nears in Co-op Court Case,” updates readers on a district court case that 22 milk producers brought against Matanuska Valley Farmers Co-operating Association regarding the use of profits from the sale of milk.

A second story tells about a robbery charge reduced to embezzlement by a grand jury in a dispute between two men, one of whom was dispossessed of at least $500 after a night of partying at Trent’s Resort in Wasilla.

Another story informs readers that school was closed from Sept. 15 to 20 so students can help with a bumper potato harvest. And related stories say a PTA meeting also had been postponed because of harvest and about the potato harvest itself.

And another centers on petitions available to sign at Bert’s Drug Store and at the post office asking the Alaska Railroad to reopen two crossings in Palmer. The last few stories are about a Palmer Chamber meeting at noon in the Lutheran Church, a new manager for Matanuska Valley Hospital and a visit to the area by a group of U.S. senators.

On page seven of that first edition, Daniels lays out her vision for the newspaper.

“In the first place, every issue of the Frontiersman which appears will be dedicated to the furthering of Valley interests. Palmer and the Matanuska Valley were chosen as the home of the Valley Frontiersman because I believe in the future that lies just ahead of us here. I believe that the Frontiersman can be of help to the Valley and its people in building for that period of progress and advancement which we know is coming.”

Today as we begin our 65th year of publishing the stories of this place and its people we are still guided by that vision Daniels laid out.

And we continue to believe as she did that “the Valley Frontiersman is our paper — yours and mine together. I want to hear what you think of it and how you think it might be improved.”

Send us birthday greetings, story ideas, events for the calendar or other ideas for how we can improve our Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. Email us at news@frontiersman.com, call us at 352-2250 or send us a note to P.O. Box 873509, Wasilla, AK, 99687.