PICTURING THE PAST

Editor’s note: This year marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Depression Era colonists to the Valley. This is the second in a summer-long series recognizing the anniversary, published each Friday.

PALMER — Three quarters of a century after the first Matanuska Colonists began taming the Alaska wilderness, the fruits of that labor continue to thrive.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was a new start for 204 families to first travel to the Valley sight unseen. With their families and no more than 2,000 pounds of possessions, those first colonists are still remembered. The contributions of those first pioneers are remembered in the annual Colony Days celebration, which is this weekend in Palmer.

Those first colonists are also remembered in the “Matanuska Colony 75th Anniversary Scrapbook,” a compilation of photographs, quotes and other tidbits about the area’s pioneers. It was a labor of love for Lynette A. Lehn and Lorraine M. Kirker, who scrambled to put the scrapbook together in a month.

“What got us started is Brigitte Lively did a beautiful 50th anniversary book, then she also did a 60th anniversary book,” Kirker said. “And they were wonderful. She did a lot of interviews, has a lot of great pictures. So, I called the committee and said, ‘When is the book coming out for the 75th anniversary?’ They said there isn’t one, can you do it?”

Although Kirker owns and operates Alaskana Books in Palmer, writing isn’t her strong suit, she said.

“But I have a lot of books, all kinds of agricultural stuff and others that have stuff on the colony,” she said. “I said we can do this, but this is how it’s going to be: We’re going to have a lot of pictures, we’re going to have a lot of quotes, but we’re not writing any new history on the colony.”

The result is the first edition of the scrapbook, which features many previously unpublished photographs of colonist families.

It also gives a glimpse into the national attention the Alaska pioneers garnered. From their trips to the Last Frontier to early media accounts of the colony, the scrapbook hits all the bases.

On page 63 is an excerpt from the May 7, 1938, issue of Collier’s Weekly magazine, one of the most popular periodicals of the time. In a piece titled “Pilgrims’ Progress,” Collier’s is so impressed with the agricultural potential of the area it proclaims with an “expert opinion” that the area “can support a population in comfort and modest prosperity of 18,000,000.”

You read correctly, that says 18 million.

“I checked that several times,” Kirker said with a chuckle. “It really said that, 18 million. I think they were off a little, that maybe they thought all of Alaska was like this area.”

The Jan. 15, 1935, issue of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner wrote about the colonization of the Matanuska, proclaiming “Definitely decided on Matanuska.”

And before the colonists settled in the Valley, they were greeted by thousands of well-wishers in San Francisco and Seattle, Kirker said. On page 9, a photograph of a wedding party on board the St. Mihiel en route to Alaska, has Oscar Kindgren in it, who is the father of Gerry Keeling, manager of the Colony House Museum and the first baby born in the new colony hospital in November 1935.

“The Minnesota people came first and went through San Francisco,” Kirker said. “The Michigan and Wisconsin people took the northern route and went through Seattle. What happened is Seattle was just furious that the government was spending all this money in San Francisco and Seattle, which had always been the door to Alaska, was being left out.”

And while today there’s not much resemblance to the Valley the colonists settled 75 years ago, some things never change, Kirker said. Giant vegetables are still the wonder of the Valley and a train that runs daily to Anchorage is still a hot topic of discussion.

The unusual size of the produce grown here “was the one thing all the media people were very impressed with,” she said. “They would always comment on the size of the produce, that there were strawberries as big as teacups.”

And the colonists in 1935 had something the area doesn’t have now, she said.

“Actually, in 1935 they had a daily train to Anchorage,” she said. “I wanted to put that in the book, because today they’re still talking about a train to Anchorage.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.