KSKA celebrates 50 years of Alaska statehood. Listen to stories about Alaska's state history.
John Jack de Yonge remembers meeting Mucktuk Marsden during the Constitutional Convention in Fairbanks.
De Yonge , a senior at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, was covering the convention for the Anchorage Times when in the first draft of the Alaska Constitution was presented.
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Laurel Downing Bill sits atop a treasure trove of stories inherited from her aunt Phyllis Downing Carlson.
Her aunt came to Alaska as a young girl in the early 1900’s when her father, Laurel’s grandfather, moved to Cordova to help build a railroad to Kennecott.
Aunt Phyllis grew up in Cordova.
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In 1958, Lee Jordan was a service man stationed in Anchorage and making a little money setting type for the Anchorage Times when news came through that the Senate had finally passed the statehood bill.
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John Whitehead is a historian who spent two decades researching and writing the book – “Completing the Union: Alaska, Hawaii and the Battle for Statehood.”
He remembers the efforts of a New Orlean’s business man who spent his on funds to help turn the territory of Alaska into a state.
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Marge Mullen and her husband, a bomber pilot during the Second World War, flew a small plane to Alaska – looking for a frontier life.
When the federal government opened up homesteading to vets, she and her husband walked 60 miles, endured some wet nights camping till they got to the stream they had seen drawn on the map.
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Walt Parker has been on the frontlines of the battle to safely develop Alaskan oil.
He traveled up and down the Alaska pipeline route trying to make sure it was built right.
A watchdog was needed from the very beginning.
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Kit Crittenden lived in Anchorage before Alaska became a state.
After spending a year living in Finland, she was convinced the need town needed more trails.
One of her first projects was the Chester Creek Park.
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Mia Basler ‘s husband John, brought her over from Holland to live at several remote federal aviation stations.
They remember a difficult birth at Moses Point, about 100 miles from Nome.
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Neva Eagan was a young mother in 1958 when the senate approved statehood for Alaska.
Married to the man that would become Alaska’s first governor, she was in Washington watching the senate as the vote neared.
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Willie Hensley wasn’t even in the state just before statehood.
An Inupiat from Kotzebue, he was at a private prep school on the East Coast.
During his four years there he could only afford one trip home.
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Edward Itta was 13 when Alaska became a state.
He had just left Barrow for the first time to attend boarding school.
Fifty years later he is Mayor of the North Slope Borough.
He reflects back on what it was like being an Inupiat Eskimo living in the territory of Alaska.
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Emil Notti was a young man when he wrote a letter to a few Natives group suggesting that they get together to Native rights to lands in Alaska.
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In 1963 Ingrid Peterson became the first person to fly a single-engine plane over the North Pole.
She took off from Fairbanks with her husband, Ayna, navigating.
Her Cessna 205 was loaded with 200 gallons of extra fuel.
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Johanna Bouker grew up in Dillingham the daughter of the man who developed the Brooks Camp in what would become the Katmai National Park and Preserve.
The old Malatka Air Service was a family affair with Johanna’s mother running the office.
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Bill Egan became Alaska’s first Governor but not without a fight from Bob Atwood, publisher of the Anchorage Times who had pushed hard for statehood.
Kenneth Atkinson, an anchorage attorney, remembers how his law partner, George McLaughlin, managed the Egan campaign.
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When Susan Bramsted was 16 she went to work at Cordova Air, which later merged with Alaska Airlines.
She still works for Alaska Airlines and remembers the early days – when she got a ride with a neighbor back and forth to work at the Anchorage airport.
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John Enge is a Petersburgh fishermen who remembers that the fish traps set up by processors in Southeast during territorial days tempted many to dip into the captive bounty.
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Johanna Bowker was a bored housewife in Dillingham when she noticed one of the women organizing a class with an interesting instructor for the community.
Then that family left town.
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