History in Ashes

Frontiersman

In the blustery dark of February fourth, several teary-eyed Palmer residents gathered around the burning Matanuska Valley Farmers Cooperating Association trading post building to say farewell to another historic Colony building which sits in a historic district as old as the city itself.

This building was different than the others that have burned in the area. The legacy of the Palmer trading post still stands tall. Behind a charred wooden frame, the building may be gone, but the feeling is still as smooth as the ice cream once produced there. The history of the co-op dates back to the beginning of time for the Palmer community. The planned working district was a simple one, made for a simple way of life, simple in work, life, and worship.

"It [the co-op] was the whole history of Palmer," said former co-op president and 27-year board member John Nash. "It was a multi-use building and that was the place where people came to trade; it was used by everybody in the community," he added.

In the wake of the economic plunge of the late 1920s, Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" plan in 1932, along with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, gave 202 families from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan a chance for a new life. The plan promised 40 acres of land with 30 years to pay for it to families hurt by the Great Depression. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder in small train cars those 202 families set out for the Alaska frontier, to arrive and live in tents with single wood burning stoves.

Since the colonists arrived 67 years ago, the community of Palmer has grown into what some say provides a quality of life found nowhere else. However, the economic history began with a plan drafted in Washington D.C., thousands of miles away by the architect David Williams. The plan called for a community of wooden structures to surround a central park. Among those buildings a school, gym, warehouse, powerhouse, water tower, post office, hospital, hatchery, recreation hall, trading post, garage and various churches were conceived. The area, known today as the Palmer Historic District, sits on roughly 60 acres located on the east side of the Palmer railroad tracks.

In 1935, the Alaskan Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, or ARRC, built the first warehouse for the colonists. That first section of the warehouse, along with the midsection and east-wing additions built in 1936, burned two weeks ago.

The co-op trading post consumed in the fire stood as the most significant.

In 1940, the Matanuska Valley Farmers Cooperating Association, along with the support of the Colony members and residents, took control of the industry and the building, which was then commonly renamed the Co-op. The Co-op was then opened to everybody and gave the colonists and local homesteaders the means to process and sell their produce.

Still surviving today, many Palmer residents who were members of the original Colony talk about the quiet life in the booming days of the Colony district. Larry Vasanoja and Wayne Bouwens, who call themselves "Colony kids" have seen first-hand the development of the area.

"We all grew up in the same boat, everybody knew everybody," Vasanoja said while sitting down for coffee in Vagabond Blues coffee house. "That building [Co-op building] was the nucleus of the community."

"We were a close family," Bouwens said. "This community was a big part of the development of the road to Anchorage."

The famous label "Matanuska Maid," was created in 1936 by Dorothy Sheely, daughter of the colony's general manager Ross Sheely. The familiar logo of a young ice-skater in a short-skirted, fur-trimmed costume was designed in 1949 by co-op manager James Wilson, and remained the logo for many years.

Developed in 1940, the production of pasteurized milk and ice cream opened new sales opportunities for the company. The milk, eggs, cream, canned vegetables and many other packaged goods allowed the company to expand to outside markets. A butchery, cold storage and a laundry facility were also added in the co-op building.

"My mother used to work at the Pearl White laundry," said Gerri Keeling, another original Colony kid. Keeling remembers being a teenager and going each day after school to the co-op to help her mother in the laundry.

"I thought it was great," she said. "I thought it was fun,"

In 1943, The Valley Settler Co-op and Matanuska Valley News, a community newspaper, reported the frustration of local farmers and the major problems faced by the reluctance of merchants in Anchorage and the adjoining area to purchase Palmer farm products. Some farmers felt that the merchants at the time considered the products shipped from Palmer to be inferior to the products shipped in from Outside, because Palmer products could not be supplied all year long. This report was written the same year the co-op hit gross sales of over $1.3 million in production.

Between 1952 and 1953 the first Pure Pak machine in Alaska was used at the Palmer co-op to produce milk in cartons. This opened a huge market for the co-op, which was then able to supply military bases Ft. Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base with milk, eggs, produce and other goods. One year later, Matanuska Maid ice cream won top honors in a nationwide competition.

The co-op was reorganized in 1961, after a meeting in which the old co-op board was recalled and new members were elected. After new members were elected, changes in services were implemented, such as in 1962, when the vegetable growers left the co-op.

In 1965, Matanuska Maid Inc. moved to a new creamery in Anchorage and milk production at the Palmer co-op stopped. After the milk production soured, a hardware store took over the space inside the co-op building.

Years would pass, and finally in 1985 the state of Alaska foreclosed on the operation after the co-op filed for bankruptcy.

In 1986, the Palmer Historical Society was started and the process of recognizing the co-op buildings for their historical significance began. Six years later, in June 1991, the buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of Palmer's Historic District.

Years would again pass and on February fourth, the former co-op trading post went up in amber smoke and flames.

"A broad community heart was hurt that night … I was so glad to see so many people show up to say good-bye," Keeling said.

At the time of the fire, Keeling was one of many local residents who attended the unplanned retirement in smoke and ash from the Mat-Su co-op. As the center piece of a quaint community burned, the hot embers and smoke rolled over the busy streets and through the eyes of residents unsure of its long history.

The question now is what's to be done with the building and property. Though protected as a national historic district, many residents, like Larry Vasanoja, think the land should be put to use for the community.

"What would be ideal is a small business mini mall, something useful for this community," Vasanoja said.

Bouwens thinks new meeting rooms would help the community.

"There needs to be something the whole community can use, like meeting rooms for the Borough or school board," said Bouwens.

After a million steps have treaded the trading post's smooth wooden floor, after thousands of handshakes and smiles, egg and potato transactions to free ice cream samples to the Friday afternoon sounds of children, the co-op is burned -- destroyed forever in the Palmer's past. How it was destroyed was hard on the eyes and heavy on the hearts. To Wayne Bouwens a piece of his past is gone and all that is left is twisted metal, burned wood, exposed steam pipes and a stench of smoke that blows in the wind. It's easy for colony kids like Bouwens, Vasanoja and Keeling to look upon the site and picture the building as it once was, but memories are all that are left now.