Part of Wasilla's history hits a magical birthday

Standing in the Wasilla Train Depot on a dark, cold January night, Carl Fritzler dug into his pocket trying to find a couple of loose coins, anything really, that would help him start his new life.

The year was 1932, and Fritzler and a friend were just getting off the train in Wasilla -- Fritzler with three pennies in his pocket, his friend with a whopping $2.80, but they had their dreams, and as young men, dreams were all they needed.

"It was the middle of the night and we were standing between the two baggage cars. We didn't know where we were going or where anything was," Fritzler recalls. "The depot caretaker saw us get off and asked us 'Where in the world are you coming from? My God, didn't you freeze?'"

Seventy years later, Fritzler celebrated his 90th birthday with a large party Friday night. His birthday is a statistical anomaly -- he was born 10-11-12 -- but he is as regular a guy as you will ever meet.

"I worked hard and earned everything I got, I had a great wife and a good life," Fritzler said, "and that's just about everything you could want."

He is one of the oldest "old-timers" of the Valley, and he is as sharp as ever. Give him a second, and he'll recount the days building the first barracks of Elmendorf Air Force Base, or the year he spent building a home in Anchorage -- the second home ever built in the Spenard area. Ask him about dairy farming, and he'll tell you about how he got a head of cattle, and then "before I knew it, I had 117 head of cattle." But one of his favorite stories is how he got to Alaska.

"I was living in Kimball, Nebraska and the guy that ran the Experimental Station up here came through my town talking about agriculture. He said you could get 160 acres for a $16 filing fee," Fritzler said. "I thought, 'Boy, that's cheap and I've always wanted my own place.' I never listened to anything else after he told me that.

"I never knew nothing about Alaska, but I knew I wanted to come up here and farm because that's what they were doing, the guy said," Fritzler explained. "So we bummed our way to Alaska. We finally got here on the train from Seward to Anchorage to Wasilla in the middle of the night on January 7, 1932. We had the blackest faces you'd ever see because back then, it was steam engines and the black coal was everywhere.

"That first night, the depot caretaker stoked the fire and let us sleep there," Fritzler said. "The next day, we walked over to the roadhouse and started talking to the people, and we asked where the farms were, because we wanted to work for room and board. The one guy told us, 'What the heck are you talking about? The largest farm in this area is three acres.' I could have died right there."

During his first weeks in Wasilla, Fritzler managed to get set up with one family that was homesteading in the Fairview Loop area. He helped build a log home, accepting room and board as his only payment. Later that first summer, he got a job clearing lines for a survey crew in the Palmer area.

Two years later, in 1934, his dream of homesteading became a reality. He bought 160 acres in the area where the Little Red Schoolhouse and Wasilla Bar are, and built a 20-foot-by-20-foot log cabin on it. He "proved up" on it later that year, and he still laughs about the process.

"You had to have 20 acres clear, a fence up and a livable structure on it to prove it for the $16 filing fee," Fritzler recalls. "So I cut down the trees at the stumps and waited until it snowed and had the inspector out. After there was a lot of snow, you couldn't tell that land wasn't cleared like it was supposed to. If I had been a week later or a week earlier, they would have never let me get away with it."

Fritzler worked just about every type of job imaginable, because he had to pay his bills.

"It wasn't like it was now when people look for the highest paying job," Fritzler said. "You did things because it paid the bills or it helped other people."

One year, he grew potatoes. Another year, he grew 40 acres of garden vegetables. He worked for a few years on the railroad, a few years with the road commission, a few years in the mine. At one point, he decided to go into the dairy business, and "before I knew it, I had 117 head of cattle running around and had to build a barn."

The dairy business turned out to cost more than it was worth, and eventually, Fritzler had to sell off 65 acres to pay for the operation.

During those early years, Fritzler worked on a number of community projects that are now part of the Valley scene, whether it be helping on the construction of a community hall, helping start the construction trades program at Wasilla High School or building a Little League field that now bears his name, Fritzler has been instrumental in helping shape the Wasilla area. He built the second barracks on Elmendorf Air Force Base, and built the second home ever established in Spenard.

A few years after the dairy business closed, after marrying his wife Vicky, the couple decided to put up a camper park in Wasilla. "There were no roads back then, and they started talking about a road coming from Anchorage through Wasilla, and I knew my land was right where the road was going," Fritzler said. "I thought I could put up a filling station alongside the road, but there weren't a lot of cars then, so we put up a camper park."

The park was located next to the corner where Sears is now. The Fritzlers owned and operated the camper park until a few years ago. Now, road construction lines the area, a sign of more changes to come.

"When I came out here, there was no electricity, no roads, no phones," Fritzler said. "I'd get a moose and we'd can the meat and can the vegetables and live off of what you had."

Now, things have changed drastically. Wasilla has become a miniature version of Anchorage, and the growth has led to a different way of life here, Fritzler said.

"It used to be you could do whatever you had to do to get by," Fritzler said. "Now, they have licenses for everything and inspectors for everything you used to be able to do yourself. It started getting big-time in the 80s."

Fritzler now lives in the Wasilla Area Seniors Center apartments, and is happy with his 90 years of life. Friday night, his son, Mark, hosted a large birthday party for him, and about 50 people showed up. Fritzler said his son has asked him to move into the house, but even at 90, independence is important.

"I figure that as long as I'm getting around on my own and don't need somebody to look after me, why not live by myself?" Fritzler asked. "I've done it my whole life."