Help protect our past for our future

To the editor:

Is anyone out there interested in helping remember and preserve Wasilla's history? Now is the time to make your presence known.

Among other knowledgeable "old-timers" lost to us in the past couple years, the Valley, Wasilla and the Wasilla-Knik Historical Society was dealt a double whammy with the death of two of its most valuable members - LeRoi Heaven, former president of the Historical Society who died September 2010 and Erling Nelson, its treasurer who died January 2012.

Their passing opened a huge gaping hole, allowing a great deal of firsthand knowledge and oral history of the area to disappear. But there are many of you readers who are also a part of the Valley and the Wasilla area history. You, too, have firsthand knowledge of how this area used to be - before the "new" Glenn Highway and bridges across "The Flats," before the pipeline and the Parks Highway and traffic lights (remember the cottonwood tree?), before multiple schools and Wasilla's incorporation as a real city in 1974.

Please consider joining the Wasilla-Knik Historical Society and/or helping at the Wasilla Museum and becoming active in helping to preserve our colorful history through your stories and memories. The descendants of the homesteading families in this area have many, many interesting stories to tell. Many of you know the stories and the anecdotes that give our area our sense of place.

Wasilla was founded in 1917 when the railroad come through, intersecting the Carle Wagon Road that went from the bustling town of Knik to the Willow Creek mining area. There is a lot of history to be shared between then and now. You can help do that. Wasilla's centennial celebration is a short five years away. Please think about how you can get involved and help preserve and contribute to our history. Call the Wasilla-Knik Historical Society, the Wasilla Dorothy Page Museum, the Knik Museum or the city of Wasilla and help protect our past for our future.

Margaret Heaven

Wasilla