Coal mining past is little-known, worth preserving

Inserted into today’s Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman is a first-time project we’ve put together honoring this year’s inductees into the Alpine Historical Society’s Old Timer’s Hall of Fame.

The six nominees will be inducted at the annual Coal Miners Ball at the Alpine Inn Saturday night. These six join 173 men previously memorialized in the Hall of Fame.

This special publication also includes a look at the 50-year period when coal mining was a thriving industry in the Matanuska Valley. This year marks the 100th anniversary of an expedition to the Matanuska Coal Field to take samples of the mineral deposits there for testing on the East Coast.

Did you know Sutton was founded as the terminus at the northern end of the Matanuska spur line off the Alaska Railroad? Did you know the railroad was one of the mines’ best customers during their 50 years of operation?

Growth — and the changes that inevitably come with it — has happened quickly in the Mat-Su Borough. Consider Sutton and the changes it saw from 1913 to 1941. In just 28 years, the region went from having no road or railroad access to having a wagon road in 1914, a railroad in 1917 and a highway running past its front door by 1941.

For about 50 years, coal was a major player in Alaska’s energy industry. It fueled the railroad, heated and powered Anchorage’s growing military bases, and most of the region’s homes and businesses.

Then oil and natural gas arrived in Alaska’s market and reformed the energy landscape. Today, a full third of the state’s economy is based on oil and gas revenues.

But before oil fired the economic pistons of Alaska, that work was done by coal. That coal was mined by legions of hardy men who worked with their hands in the cold, dark underground tunnels to chisel a living from the mountains.

It is these men, women and families that we will honor at the Coal Miners Ball on Saturday. Among the Alpine Historical Society’s treasures is a fat three-ring binder with photos and stories of the first 173 miners inducted into the Hall of Fame.

While other chapters in our history are well-known and well-publicized, our coal and precious metals mining past has been forgotten by many. Radio Free Palmer and the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman are working on a larger project to help collect and preserve this chapter in our history.

If you want to volunteer to help with this project, have photos, stories, maps, artifacts or memories to share of our coal story, we want to hear from you. Call us at 352-2268, email news@frontiersman.com or send letters to 5751 E. Mayflower Court, Wasilla, AK 99654. Or, catch up with Mike Chmielewski from Radio Free Palmer or Heather Resz from the Frontiersman at the Coal Miners Ball Saturday.