Anchorage readies centennial events

Anchorage got its begin in 1915 with a tiny gathering of wall tents set up close to a muddy creek to assistance the constructing of the Alaska Railroad.

Right now, Alaska’s biggest city is a diverse and sprawling municipality of a lot more than 300,000 residents.

To celebrate its transformation from a “tent city” at Ship Creek to a lively, growing metropolis, Anchorage is hosting dozens of exciting-filled and informative events to tell the story of this intriguing city. Centennial celebration organizers have a half-million dollars to spend and are taking a distinctly Alaskan method to the festivities, letting Alaskans tell the story of Anchorage’s first 100 years.

Anchorage circa 1915.

“When Anchorage is viewed from the mouth of Ship Creek, it is staggering to understand how far we have come,” said Susan Duck, director of the Anchorage Centennial Celebration. “Picture how those early settlers have to have felt when they saw that tent city with vast land and mountains beyond it — so much chance and beauty.” 

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Hikers at the Matanuska Glacier.

Even though based in Anchorage, there are a lot of great locations to explore not far from the city. Here are a few worth checking out:

To the north

Palmer gives two distinctive animal encounters the Musk Ox Farm teaches guests about these Ice Age mammals, while the Reindeer Farm lets visitors feed, pet and take photographs with the reindeer.

Active travelers must pay a visit to the Matanuska Glacier and take self-guided hikes or go with a guide.

To the south

Watch for bald eagles, Arctic terns and trumpeter swans at the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge’s boardwalk at Potter Marsh. From Beluga Point look for beluga whales from along the Seward Highway. Pay a visit to www.adfg.alaska.gov.

At the Crow Creek Mine in Girdwood, attempt gold panning and appreciate the historical buildings, hiking trails and scenery.

The Anchorage Centennial Committee awarded $ 446,815 to fund 26 community projects. The list of events contains a summer time-extended series of brief plays with stories told by way of the eyes of Anchorage’s former mayors a botanical garden with plants such as rhubarb and hardy roses popular with the city’s pioneers temporarily replacing the fronts of 20 buildings with facades from popular buildings of the past a 1940s-style radio show to inform the story of the February 1921 unsolved murder of John “Black Jack” Sturgus, Anchorage’s very first police chief an interactive walking tour that uses tablets and smartphones to bring the city’s history alive and a log cabin design and style contest. The list goes on. 

Organizers are even searching at holding a massive bonfire like ones lit in the course of statehood celebrations in 1959, when wood was collected for days and just about absolutely everyone in town turned out to watch it burn.

‘Extraordinary spirit’

“The [centennial] is an crucial milestone in our reasonably young city,” said Duck. “It enables us to come together as a community to commemorate the extraordinary spirit of all of the men and women who have produced Anchorage such a fantastic location to reside, perform and play.”

Anchorage was initally mostly a organization town that served the railroad Ship Creek is nonetheless headquarters for the Alaska Railroad. Items changed in the 1940s with the increased presence of the military in Alaska.

The growing city suffered a key setback on March 27, 1964, when a 9.two magnitude earthquake struck, causing substantial damage to its downtown. Anchorage began rebuilding and got a significant increase in 1968 when oil was found at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope. Building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline quickly followed, pumping new life into Alaska and fueling a boom that transformed Anchorage.

Ship Creek.

These days about two million people visit Alaska in an average year, and much more than half of them quit in Anchorage, stated Jack Bonney, public relations manager for Go to Anchorage. Anchorage’s Centennial is bound to attract even more visitors this year.

“I feel it is crucial that we celebrate the way our city has grown but we also recognize and treasure the unique factors about Alaska that have remained the very same for a lot more than a century,” Bonney stated.

Much more info on Anchorage’s Centennial Celebration can be discovered at www.anchoragecentennial.org.

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