Growing up on the Glenn

Child of pioneer family recalls early days

July 23, 2006

By MARY AMES/Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Her parents were pioneers, building a lodge at Mile 110 Glenn Highway in 1947, and Pam Meekin holds the memories of growing up on the Glenn.

Meekin has mementos, notes and photos of a time few remember, in part because so few lived in that place at the time. She wants to share her memories with others, before it's too late, before nothing exists of the old life along the road as reminders of what went before.

Wednesday afternoon, Meekin spoke to the Glenn Highway Scenic Byways Association board at the Mat-Su Visitors Center.

There were several roadhouses and lodges on the highway when Meekin was growing up, but few of them housed children.

&#8220Most of the lodges were started by guides,” she said. &#8220They liked to hunt and fish, so they started guiding. Gunsight, Eureka and Tahneta became little communities around the roadhouses.”

The guides used horses then, letting them free-range in the offseason. And there was a sense of competition among them as businesses.

&#8220One of my favorite memories is of the bells on the horses when I was about 6 years old,” Meekin said. &#8220They'd get all mixed up with each other and we almost had shootouts when we had to determine whose horse was whose.”

Meekin worked hard as the oldest of three children raised at Meekin's Log Cabin Camp. She cooked, cleaned and served meals. She remembered standing on a wood crate when she first started washing dishes.

Her father was a taskmaster, she said, which was good for instilling a strong work ethic in his children. But as a teen, Meekin rebelled.

&#8220I got feisty,” she said. &#8220I'd go to work at the other places until dad asked me to come home. I worked at Sheep Mountain until he came in and said, ‘OK, this time you can keep your tips.'”

As she grew up, Meekin worked her way along the highway, landing finally in Glennallen, where she graduated from high school, and worked at the Gateway Lodge in her senior year.

&#8220I got to know so many people,” she said.

Meekin remembers Sheep Mountain and Eureka lodges as big lodges that burned when she was young.

&#8220The neighbors didn't like each other very much, but they all came to help,” she said.

They were neighbors in that sense, and neighbors when the phones came in. Everybody was on the same line, with each business having its own distinct ring.

&#8220It was called a party line, and it was a real party,” she said. &#8220Everybody listened in.

All the lodges had repair shops, since cars and trucks were not so reliable back then, and they all had bars. In 1951, the Glenn Highway was paved from Anchorage to about the corner where Hartley Motors sits today in downtown Palmer.

&#8220People would come out to our place from Anchorage for dinner,” she said. &#8220You could see Matanuska Glacier from the dining room then.”

Sometimes they weren't so busy, but other times they would be really busy. Meekin recalled one Mother's Day when even with the energy of a teen, she went to bed exhausted.

The Wahrer family owned Eureka Lodge, and about twice a year, the families would get together for a visit. The five or six Wahrer kids and the three Meekin children mostly would just look at each other, not exactly social butterflies.

Years later, Meekin's son brought his girlfriend home and showed her old family photos.

&#8220She said, ‘I know these people,'” Meekin said. &#8220It turns out she was a Wahrer granddaughter. When they married, we acted like we had been great friends all along.”

When she was in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades, Meekin and her brother attended a private Catholic boarding school, Copper Valley School, near Glennallen. Because most of the students were from the Interior and couldn't go home frequently, the school made a rule that all students could visit home only once a month. At that time, the White Alice radar stations were being installed across the state, and one was close to her family's lodge. The White Alice workers stayed at the lodge, and their helicopter flew in to pick up the Meekins once a month at the school.

Her father wanted his children to learn about the larger world, and so they would take &#8220these road trips,” Meekin said, rolling her eyes.

&#8220We drove to southern California and stayed for six months,” she said. &#8220I went to 12 schools in 12 years.”

Few places she went to school rivaled the 63-mile ride she took one way to Palmer when she started school there.

&#8220We had to drive to Chickaloon to get the bus,” she said. &#8220Then the bus ride was 35 miles. There weren't any kids there then. Only three kids lived on the hill.”

The new improved Glenn Highway is beautiful, Meekin said.

&#8220It's what we need now,” she said. &#8220Each surviving lodge found its own niche, but it's important to keep the old ones alive in some small way. Driving it now is haunting, to see the skeletal remains of places.”

Assisting the Glenn Highway Scenic Byways Association by sharing her memories is one way Meekin will keep the old roadhouses and communities alive.

&#8220I love sharing,” she said.

Contact Mary Ames at 352-2284 or mary.ames@frontiersman.com.