reading

History isn’t about dates and places and wars. It’s about the people who fill the spaces between them.

As a steamship arrives in Seward on April 19, 1906, citizens head down to the dock. Businesses closed and all activities stopped as people met with their connection to the outside world.
RESURRECTION BAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (51.1.7)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author and publisher.

Every effort was made by the author to secure permission for use of photos from Alaska Trail Dogs by Elsie Noble Caldwell. Smith, 1945. Doug Capra offers grateful acknowledgement for the use of the book’s photos to illustrate “Blossom: ‘Speed Demon of the North.’”

Distributed by Ember Press and the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area.

The Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm (KMTA) National Heritage Area is one of forty-nine Heritage Areas across the nation and Alaska’s first. The KMTA National Heritage Area was established in 2009 through an act of Congress to recognize, preserve, and interpret the historic resources and cultural landscapes of the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm transportation corridor.

For my wife CINDY and our children, NATE and EMILY, who have shared and aided in my quest for Alaska history over many years.

DOUG CAPRA’S STORYTELLING VOICE makes you want to draw a little closer to the campfire and settle in because you know that this tale is going to be a good one. A slight East-Coast lilt to his speech accents a voice that resonates with a depth not only of timbre but of understanding beyond just the facts of the account. He makes connections, reflecting on how people may have felt or what they may have thought as events unfolded around them.

The quality of Capra’s voice can be heard throughout this colorful collection of stories about some of the characters in and around the Kenai Mountains and Kenai Fjords of Alaska. History is more than a chronology of dates and facts. History is about the people who lived during the time that history was being made. In these pages you will meet some of those individuals. Their stories are illustrated by historic photographs of the time.

The Spaces Between: Stories from the Kenai Mountains to the Kenai Fjords is the first original title published by the Kenai Mountains-Turn-again Arm National Heritage Area. Alaska, America’s forty-ninth state, now claims one of forty-nine National Heritage Areas across the Nation. The designation of the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm as a National Heritage Area recognizes this geographic corridor as a place that offers a unique historic contribution to the fabric of our country. From the glittering waters of Resurrection Bay to the breathtaking Chugach Mountains along Turnagain Arm, the Kenai Mountain-Turnagain Arm Corridor cradles one of the most interesting regions of Alaska history.

Seward circa 1940.
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION COURTESY OF THE DONALD BARTONI FAMILY.

In many ways, the development of Kenai Mountain-Turnagain Arm reflects the history of Alaska as a whole. An important historic theme throughout the KMTA National Heritage area is transportation. Native peoples first traveled the area by foot trails and used rivers, lakes, and ocean shorelines for travel. The building of the ship, Phoenix, on the shores of Resurrection Bay attests to Russia’s early presence in Alaska. American prospectors later developed a network of trails known as the Iditarod trail system to get to gold mining camps as far north as Nome. Dogs often led the way in hauling freight and people through mountainous terrain. Eventually, rough wagon roads were cut through the wilderness. Seward, known as the Gateway City, provided a deep water port for steam ships to dock. From Seward, America’s first and only government railroad stitched its way across the Kenai Mountains and up the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet toward Fairbanks. Finally, the building of modern roads in the National Heritage Area opened the Kenai Peninsula to the rest of the territory.

Most technological developments in the area have taken place over the course of the past century. The history of Alaska is actually quite recent, with many pioneers still able to remember the days before they could drive a vehicle from one end of the National Heritage Area to the other.

Doug Capra interviewed some of these pioneers. The stories in this collection reflect many of those conversations. For example, Pat Williams was a little girl in Seward when President Warren G. Harding visited Alaska in 1923 to commemorate the completion of the Alaska Railroad. Today, at age 104, she still remembers the fondness that citizens of Seward held for their President—and the collective grief of the community when he died mysteriously shortly after leaving Alaska.

So put another log on the fire and settle in. These and other stories capture the excitement and pioneer spirit of the people that come alive in The Spaces Between: Stories from the Kenai Mountains to the Kenai Fjords.

The children and adults of Seward’s Methodist Episcopal Church are seen here picnicking a few miles north of town. It appears as if they were quietly having lunch when a photographer told them to quickly assemble for a photo.
Note the little girl in the front row to the far left.
SEWARD COMMUNITY LIBRARY MUSEUM (SCL1-140)

LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPH TO THE LEFT. It shows the Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School at a picnic about 1906 in Seward, Alaska. Look closely at the faces—especially the little girl in the front row to the far left. What’s going on there? We have other photos of this group wandering by a nearby creek.

In his essay “Reading Photographs,” Hans Durrer writes, “Photographs are never clear by themselves. In some way or another, they are only the shattered fragments of the broken mirror of reality and, as they show us their images, we are forced to reconstruct their meaning.”¹

After studying this photograph, my guess is that after arriving at their picnic spot and wandering the creek for a while, this Sunday school group settled down for lunch. As they were eating, a pesky photographer disturbed their meal by asking them to arise and pose for a group photograph—which they did, but with some reluctance as you can see from some of their facial expressions. Thank goodness for us today that some photographers can be annoying.

I mention this here because it has been photographs like this one, and those in the second chapter (“Mary and Chester”) that have compelled me over the years to write these stories. What were people like one hundred or more years ago? Human nature is much the same. On the other hand—from having known people who lived in earlier days and from my research—I think some of us today would be greatly surprised by how social, religious, and racial attitudes have changed. We would find much in common with the people in these old photographs, but some of their core beliefs and attitudes would bother us.

Slogging through material while researching stories like these can be daunting. About thirty-five years ago while in Fairbanks doing some of this research, I came across a story that has helped guide me through the morass of sources writers gather during their investigations.

Gold miners in the Tanana Valley roamed over huge areas, finding a little color here, a little color there. They frequently sank several holes using wood fires to thaw the icy muck and boulders. Evenings often found them in their tents or cabins panning the day’s residue by lamplight. Any gold they found was still impure when they took it to the bank or assay office.

A story is told of a miner who hiked to town to take his poke to the gold cashier’s window at the bank. He dropped the poke on the counter, and the cashier carefully dumped the dust and nuggets on to the pan of the balance scales. After blowing at the gold to rid it of its dust and debris, the cashier complained, “There’s quite a bit of dirt still in it.”

Some stories in this book first saw print nearly forty years ago in one form or another. Over the years, they’ve been rewritten and expanded. Many people have helped me locate, collect, and sort through the vast material that constitutes Alaska history. If on occasion I have inadvertently tossed out a few of the nuggets and kept some of the dirt, or made other errors, the fault is entirely mine. And if I have inadvertently omitted any names here or in my list of sources, I offer apologies.

When I first came to Alaska in 1971, the remnant of the pioneer generation still lived. Most of them were women. It has been my privilege to meet and know many of them. You may notice a special interest in women’s history in this book. These pioneer women were very willing to sit down and tell me their stories with a frankness that I at first found shocking, and later as I got older, refreshing. They inspired me to learn more about other women who ventured to the Alaska Territory.

While teaching on the Aleutian Island of Adak, I became fascinated with Aleut culture and history. While wandering the island in my spare time, I photographed World War II ruins and read all I could about the Aleutian campaign. That fall of 1971, the Atomic Energy Commission was on Adak preparing for Project Cannikin, the last of three underground nuclear tests performed on Amchitka Island. In early 1972, the U.S. Coast Guard, during a harrowing chase, captured two Russian fishing vessels heading a large flotilla in American waters. They brought them to Adak and the event went international. I took notes, conducted interviews, and wired a story to a newspaper I had worked for on the East Coast. When it was published and distributed on the wire services, I knew I was participating in Alaska history.

That same year Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor, Henry Aristide “Red” Boucher, visited Adak. I had dinner with him at the Bachelor Officer Quarters (BOQ) and we talked about preserving the World War II history of the Aleutians. I had just turned twenty-three, and here I was having dinner with Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor—and he was actually listening to me. What kind of a state was this—where a newcomer, a kid born and raised in Massachusetts, who had been here only a few months and couldn’t even call himself an Alaskan—could sit down and have dinner with the Lieutenant Governor? I determined that Alaska was the place for me.

The next year in Seward I met old-timer, John Paulsteiner. He played the zither and I played the guitar. He told me stories about early Alaska while we practiced together. One winter I convinced him to enter the local talent show with me and we played a few tunes together.² He was the one who got me interested in researching more about American artist Rockwell Kent’s visit to Alaska in 1918.

One of my fellow teachers, Dan Seavey, mushed dogs and had lived through the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. He introduced me to many others who had experienced that disaster. I talked with them and took notes. I later worked with Dan as he prepared for the first and second Iditarod Sled Dog Races. Because I knew this would be an historic event, I helped him record the preparation process and his immediate memories on audiotape so he could write a book about it.³

I met other Alaska pioneers like Hazel Ray—who had entered Resurrection Bay on a steamship before the town of Seward had even been founded, when the Lowell family still lived along the shores. I vividly recall her story about the “Pray, Do” club in Seward’s early days (See the chapters, “Seward, Alaska: 1904–06” and “Seward’s Good-Time Girls”). It was important to maintain proper decorum in those days. As the ladies played bridge together, one would ask, “Shall I bid?” and another would reply, “Pray, do.” I recall Hazel as being unimpressed with the formality.

Hazel’s daughter, Pat Williams,⁴ was always there to help me and continues to this day—as I write this, she is 104 years old. I still phone her for information and advice, and she’ll occasionally phone me after reading one of my history articles. She is a wealth of historical information and has taught me much about interpreting the past. Her advice is reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow in his novel The Waterworks. As the narrator talks to us in the present recalling the 1870’s he says, “You may think you are living in modern times, here and now, but that is the necessary illusion of every age. We did not conduct ourselves as if we were preparatory to your time. There was nothing quaint or colorful about us.”⁵

About this time I also met old-time Alaskans like Lee McAnerny who offered much help. Over the years Lee passed on a tremendous amount of material to me, and interviews with her were not just informative but quite frank. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t tell me about, even topics that people don’t usually talk about.

In 1978 Seward celebrated its 75th birthday, and I was ready to start compiling all my research and notes. One of my high school students, Barbara (Simpson) Kraft, helped me with research. Some of those early stories first saw light in the pages of the Seward Phoenix Log. For this I thank former owners, Beverly and Willard Dunham—who continue to be excellent sources for Alaska history. Over the years I have written other historical sketches for that newspaper and owe much to Edgar Blatchford, Chris Casati, Adam Orth, Mike Olson, Chris Smith, Ed Carol and Eric Fry. During the summer of 1993, I wrote a series of articles for a short-lived newspaper (The Seward Observer).⁶ I also owe much to the editors of Seward’s numerous past newspapers—The Seward Gateway, The Seward Polaris, Seward Seaport Record, and the Petticoat Gazette.

William Faulkner wrote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” There were times I had difficulty separating the past from the present.

One winter in 1979 found me spending the morning in the library basement reading old newspapers from the 1920s. By noon I was hungry, so I drove absentmindedly downtown for lunch. I parked somewhere on Seward’s Main Street, got out, and headed to a local restaurant. But when I awoke from my daze, I realized the restaurant was gone. It had been in that spot in the 1920s. I stood on the sidewalk where its entrance would have been, shaking my head and feeling foolish.

One Saturday morning in the early 1980s, former librarian Margaret “Jackie” Deck got me out of bed with a phone call: “You’ve got to get down here,” she said. “There’s a woman you need to interview.” When I arrived with my tape recorder, Jackie introduced me to a woman whose husband had mushed poet Robert Service into the Yukon Territory for the first time. I still have that interview on tape. A year earlier I had interviewed the children of Seward’s founder, John Ballaine—Sephronia, Florence, and Jerrold. They had many interesting memories of their father and the town’s early days.

I conducted much of my research in Seward’s libraries. In 1972, I recall that the library was in the basement of the old First National Bank building. That’s where I first met Jackie Deck who moved with the library to the south corner of Fifth Avenue and Adams Street. Jackie and I worked together on several projects, including the 1964 Earthquake slide show. Thanks also to later librarians Kathy Nichols and Cheryl Pearson and their staff, Doris Welch and Maureen Callahan. Current librarian Patty Linville and her staff, Rachel James, Katelyn Rullman, Tim Morrow, and Carol Conant have also been of tremendous help.

Mike Stallings, who compiled his massive index to The Seward Gateway for the years 1904–1910, has made life easier for writers of early Alaska territorial history.⁷ Lee Poleske, longtime head of the Resurrection Bay Historical Society (RBHS) and its museum, has been a friend and invaluable help over the years. I’d spend hours with him at the old Seward Museum talking local history.⁸ He’d often send interesting clippings and bits of information my way. Tim Sczawinski, whose passion for local history inspires me, provided the sketch of Seward’s mountain Christmas tree for this book.

Over the years I taught many classes for the Kenai Peninsula College, including at least two on local history. My students conducted extensive research for their projects and I donated those files to our local library. I also helped many local high school students with their history projects for a local scholarship. These projects are also on file.

After I retired from teaching in 1997, I worked as a ranger at Kenai Fjords National Park (KEFJ) and still do on a limited basis. My fellow rangers have been a great help to me, especially the superintendents I worked under, Anne Castellina and Jeff Mow. My other KEFJ supervisors over the years, Amy and Jim Ireland, Sandy Brue, Kristy Sholly, and Laura Sturtz, also gave me needed support. As the reader will notice in my source list, the National Park Service (NPS) conducts extensive historical research and produces extremely valuable publications that, unfortunately, often get filed away and forgotten by the general public. I urge readers, wherever you live, to check for these NPS and other government publications when doing your historical or genealogical research.

I also offer thanks to my friends at the Alaska Historical Society (on whose board of directors I served for six years) especially Alaska State Historians Jo Antonson and Judith Bittner, Chief of Historical Preservation for Alaska at the Department of Natural Resources; and to Museums Alaska; the Seward Memorial United Methodist Church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church for access to their archives; my colleagues on both the Seward Historical Preservation Commission and the old Seward Community Library Board; the Seward Chamber of Commerce; the City of Seward (especially Linda Murphy, Patsy Jones, Kerry Martin); Virginia, Hugh and Iris Darling; Katie Ringsmuth; Shannon Kovak; Colleen Kelly; Dorothy Urbach; Louella James; Albert Kawabe; Elsie Whitmore and her son Brent and daughter Ann Whitmore-Painter; Mona Painter in Cooper Landing whose knowledge of the Kenai Peninsula is extensive; Barbara Shea; Mary Elizabeth Lee; Skip and Marie Fletcher; Walter and Elsie Blue; Clara Rust in Fairbanks; Jim Barkley; Mike Brittain; Dennis and Susan Swiderski; Ralph and Anne Hatch; Joanne Hoagland; Monty and Florita Richardson; Pat O’Brien; Gwen Cobban; Lloyd Welch; Billy Black-Jack Johnson; Casey McDannel, Jr. and family; Kevin Murphy and family; Bob and Liz Richardson; Bob Richardson, Jr.; Marilyn Pollard; Matt Ainsworth; Sharon Ackerson; Kathy (Lechner) Blackmore; Charles and Mary Lechner; Vance and Amy Hitt; Herman Leir; Dale and Carol Ann Lindsey; Marty and Donna Kowalski; Marc Swanson; Jerry Dixon; in Anchorage: the staffs at the UAA/APU Consortium Library, the Z.J. Loussac Pubic Library, the National Archives Branch and the National Park Service Regional Office; Jerry Cabana; Jason Boerger; Jason Gifford; Dan Marshall; Ruben Gaines; and Rusty Heurlin.

Over the years, I’ve written extensively about American artist Rockwell Kent and his two visits to Alaska, especially his 1918–1919 stay on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay. Complete acknowledgments for this research would require many pages. I’ve extended sources for the two chapters in this book about Kent so as to recognize some of that help. Kent’s third wife, Sally, provided me with many insights into her husband’s life as did Kent’s son Rocky, whom I met before he died, and his other son, Gordon. Kent’s grandson Chris Kent, an artist himself, has been another great resource, as have been others of Kent’s grandchildren whom I have met on their visits to Fox Island. Other thanks go to John Gorton, George and Gladys Spector, Robert Rightmire, Jake MilgramWien, Will Ross, Scott Ferris, Frederick Lewis, Eliot Stanley, Don Roberts, Richard West, and David Traxel; and to the staff of the Rockwell Kent Gallery (part of SUNY-Plattsburgh), who produced The Kent Collector—Evelyn Heins, Marguerite Eisinger, Edward R. Brohel, and Cecilia Esposito. Over the years, Kenai Fjords Tours, owners of a lodge on Fox Island, have provided me with courtesy transportation to and from the island. The Bob and Betty Hunt family, who own the land upon which the fox farm and Kent cabin were located, always offered me assistance. I spent many hours having tea with them at their cabin during my Fox Island visits.

Much of my writing takes place over coffee at the Resurrection Art Coffee House and Art Gallery or at the Sea Bean Cafe. For this I thank owners, Mike and Raylene O’Connor and Matt and Meredith Hershock—and their great baristas.

I offer special thanks to Monica Luther, Amy Ireland, and Linnea Hollingsworth—who performed as Alaska Nellie over the years in my one-woman show, Into Alaska a Woman Came. Their effort required hours of memorization and rehearsal. The show was performed in several locations: The Resurrect Art Coffee House, Hotel Edgewater, Windsong Lodge, for Kenai Fjords Tours on Fox Island, and aboard the Star of the Northwest for Major Marine Tours.

I owe a great deal to my wife’s aunt and uncle, Steve and Shirley Duda in Anchorage, true Alaskan pioneers. Shirley first came to Alaska in the 1920’s with her parents who were cooks at the whaling station in Akutan in the Aleutian Islands. She later returned with them in the 1930’s and met Steve. Their stories of life in the territory have inspired me.

Jay Stauter, who wrote a series of articles about Seward history during the 1950’s in the Seward Seaport Record, took me under his wing before he died and supplied me with much material and information—including a draft of his unpublished book about Seward history. These sources I placed on file at the Seward Library-Museum.

Mary Barry deserves a special note. Her multivolume history of Seward and her History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula are essential sources for Alaska history. She has a unique perspective of Alaska history since she has lived a good part of it herself and has known many of its prominent characters. Although I always go to primary sources when available, I have used Mary’s book as a guide. I owe her a great deal—as do the people of Alaska, especially Seward.

My old friend, Bill Porter, Jr. (since 3rd grade) who drove with me on my first trip to Alaska in 1971, has inspired my writing endeavors since we were children.

The Kenai Mountain-Turnagain Arm National Historic Area provided a grant to publish this book. I’m grateful to all the board members, and especially Program Manager Kaylene Johnson, a noted writer and historian herself, for guiding me step-by-step in the production of this book and for writing its preface.

I owe a special thanks and gratitude to Vanta Shafer who died while this book was in production. She was a Seward City Council member for many years, and a former mayor. Vanta owned Cover-to-Cover Books, and two years ago, when she began publishing the Seward Journal, she hired me to write a weekly Alaska history column. This gave me the opportunity not only to find and produce new material but also to rewrite and expand older published stories. Her husband, Bob, continues the newspaper and I continue with my column. There are many stories yet to write.

My family has lived my writer’s life with me. Every vacation has had some element of research to it. My children, Nathan and Emily, have been a great help over the years. But it’s my wife, Cindy, who has helped with research, finding and scanning photographs, reading and editing text, accounting for expenses, and all the other jobs that can distract and divert a writer from his work.

1917 Alaska Steamship Company routes

Dr. John Baughman, Seward’s physician and an assayer, walks down Main Street around 1905. Sleems Hall, to the far left, was a popular place for meetings and dances. Behind Baughman is Adams Street. The cement blocks were for building the Bank of Seward, located at the site of today’s First National Bank of Alaska. The Alaska House to the right is the site of today’s GCI building.
RESURRECTION BAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (601.1.1)

IT WAS FIVE O’CLOCK THE MORNING of August 7, 1905, when the steamer Valencia docked in Seward. Aboard were 443 railroad workers, one determined woman, and an adventurous fourteen-year-old boy.

The woman, who gave her name as Mrs. S. E. Cameron, had dressed as a man, cut her hair short, and, with pipe in mouth, had “passed muster” with the other railroad workers on board. The crew only discovered her true identity when it was too late to turn back so they gave her a private room. Mrs. Cameron told officials she was traveling with a barber named Curtis whom she intended to marry. The Valencia crew had also discovered a young boy, another stowaway, once the steamer got underway. He soon got a job in Seward as a water boy.

Such was the excitement in Seward’s early days. Although Seward was never a wild gold rush town like Dawson, Skagway, Nome, or Fairbanks, for a few years it did have the characteristics of such a wide-open town with gamblers, thieves, con men, prostitutes, and enough saloons to cater to their whims.

Eddie Beckwith, a typical western boomtown gambler, arrived in Seward in the spring of 1904. The Seward Gateway described him as a “gentlemanly little fellow” who was “well liked” in town. Beckwith had been a purser on several steamers and a steward on the Farallon before turning to gambling. Like many frontier characters, he kept his past a mystery. Beckwith appeared well-educated, and rumor around town had it that he was a graduate or at least a former student of Yale University. He lived in Seward with a woman named Bernice Markwell. After gaining a shaky reputation in town, the two headed for Valdez. But when that town shut down gambling, Beckwith returned alone to Seward, for Bernice had fallen in love with a Valdez gambler. Beckwith pleaded with her to return with him and she did, but only for a short time. He eventually followed Bernice back to Valdez and committed suicide a few days later.

That fall of 1905 had been particularly mild—an Indian summer. The town had seen little frost up to October 20^th, and the temperature rarely dipped below fifty degrees “with almost constant sunshine except for four rainy days.”

Eight days after the Valencia arrived, First Officer H. M. Speyer and Purser Tom Bandury of the steamship Edith, had a “financial disagreement” on deck. Such a conflict, claimed The Seward Gateway, “in some form or other is said to be the root of all evil.” The newspaper added: “To emphasize his argument, Speyer landed on the front of Bandury’s head and the two went over the deck together. When the discussion was ended, Bandury swore to a complaint before Commissioner Hildreth, charging Speyer with assault and battery.”

Hildreth found Speyer guilty and fined him five dollars plus sixteen dollars and ten cents for court costs, a respectable sum in 1905 Seward when a hungry traveler could sit down to a “fresh-killed” chicken dinner with ice cream and cake for seventy-five cents at the Moose Cabin Café. The amount of Speyer’s fine startled The Seward Gateway reporter who wrote: “Both commissioner and justice refused to tell how they knew just what sum the defendant could raise, but they stood all jokes good-naturedly.”

In Seward’s early days, as in most frontier towns, fights like this represented a form of entertainment, and the town followed them as we do sporting events today—from the insulting words to the first blows to the final court battles. The Seward Gateway accommodated its readers and reported these brawls as they did politics, picnics, dances, and baseball games.

A few days after the Speyer-Bandury bout, two local businessmen offered the town “another brief excitement” at the lower end of Fourth Avenue. It started when clothing merchant S. L. Caldwell noticed that Dr. Sleem’s teamster, George Salami, had backed his wagon over the water pipe in front of Caldwell’s store, breaking both the pipe and the boardwalk. The two businessmen didn’t exchange words at the time, but several days later as Salami drove by, Caldwell “inquired when he intended to repair the damage done.” According to The Seward Gateway, “Salami answered unpleasantly and the debate was soon merged into a scrap.”

Rather than break up the fight, locals quickly gathered around “and took upon its members jointly the functions of referee, timekeepers, bottle holders and police.” The crowd stopped the fight at the first round when “it was discovered that the most serious damage was the smashing of glass in the front of Caldwell’s store and another in front of Sauers’ store,” the Seward Commercial Company. At that point, the crowd drew the contestants apart and called it a draw “with all bets off.”

Sauers considered the cost of a broken window well worth the entertainment. He commented to the Gateway reporter that “the fight covered more ground than is embraced in a 24-foot ring.” He added that “the smashing of his glass ought to be charged as a foul,” but he wouldn’t press the matter because he got “a lot of fun out of the battle.” In the next day’s newspaper, Salami objected to the Gateway’s report of the fight. He was not a teamster for Dr. Sleem, but rather a partner of Doctor Sleem. Salami also denied he began the offensive talk.

During another late evening in October 1905, James Stapleton treated Seward to his antics. While “under alcoholic inspiration,” he decided to clean out several bars. Patrons quickly ousted him from the Coleman House, but he immediately headed down Fourth Avenue toward the Northern Saloon, all the while informing the public that he was a bad man. “I’m a wolly hoss!” he shouted. “I’m a tarantula from Bitter Creek pretty high up! I’m a yard wide and all wool! I’m a wolf and this is my night to howl!”

Judge Hildreth happened to be passing by but refused to become directly involved. He called upon Marshal Wybrant who, observing Jim Stapleton’s size, called on Charles Crawford, the local blacksmith “to help put Jim in cold storage.” The Seward Gateway reported the rest of the story as if it were a rodeo event:

Looking south down Main Street in Seward, Alaska during the winter of 1903–04.
RESURRECTION BAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

They were able to hold their quarry but they couldn’t propel him, as he wanted to stay where he was. Then J. J. McMannus and Ex-Deputy Marshal Lee of Nome . . . were drafted into the posse and the big four, Wybrant, Crawford, McMannus and Lee, dragged Stapleton to jail, that gentleman meanwhile addressing injurious epithets to them.

In 1905, Seward’s rough-and-tumble frontier character meant the jail often served as a “temporary home for drunk and disorderly men, where they may have an opportunity for profound thought with their heads freed from alcoholic effects.” That fall three men, who “had acquired an assortment of booze which exhaled in a flow of profanity that astonished even the waterfront of Seward,” faced the local judge.

One of the men explained to U.S. Commissioner H. H. Hildreth: “I had just come in off the road, Judge, where I hadn’t drunk nothin’ but water and coffee for quite a spell, and I guess I throwed in about ten or twelve drinks of whisky pretty fast. I was drunk all right, but I didn’t make nobody any trouble.” Hildreth let him go free.

The second man, Joe McFrau, received a ten-dollar fine because he ended up in a saloon fight he claimed he tried to break up. He told the judge: “I hit him all right, but he started to hit me first. The way it was—a long, tall man started to lick a little feller, and I told him he oughtn’t to fight a little man like that. Then this feller come at me to put me out and I just soaked him out.” Since this was McFrau’s first time before the court, Judge Hildreth fined him and warned, “After this, call in the marshal to stop a row instead of doing it yourself.”

A little later, Hildreth faced the case of the three Josephs. Joe McLennan had been playing roulette in the local Seattle Bar when he accused the croupier (roulette operator), Joe Miller, of failing to pay him his twenty-five-cents winnings. “The two Josephs could not agree on the question of liability,” The Seward Gateway reported, so McLennan, “in a loud, unprintable language,” offered to clean out the place. Special Officer Joe Graves tried to stop the fight, making it a threesome of Josephs. Judge Hildreth fined McLennan twenty-five dollars.

On a Wednesday in late June 1906, a “rumpus brought half the population into the street,” and the excitement “made Fourth Avenue lively for a few minutes shortly after midnight.” The steamer MacArthur had recently docked and its fireman, Raphael Barato, had a dispute with a local named only “Greek George.” Once the brawl started, loyalties split, with town residents on one side and the MacArthur’s crew on the other.

The Gateway noted that “All the gentlemen who enlisted for the war were more or less saturated with sulfide of zinc or some other brand of intoxicant.” Apparently, the fight started as a barroom debate about some “abstruse subject adapted to discursive analysis.” Reaching an impasse, Greek George unsheathed his huge knife and lunged at Barato, who sidestepped him while aiming a beer bottle at his head. Next, the newspaper reported: “a general mix-up” ensued with “no clear account of the scrap by rounds.” The Gateway summarized the action in true tabloid form:

The knife swept widening circles, the sailors broke ground, ran up the street and sought refuge in Wagner’s saloon, which they reached a lap ahead of the Greek. When he entered hastily, he collided with the thick end of a ball bat wielded by willing hands. A cuspidor and a few chairs were also pushed against him and the sailors fled again. It was about this time that Barato was stabbed.

Greek George sped away, chased along Fourth Avenue by the town marshal who fired several warning shots. The marshal eventually overtook Greek George “in an alley between the McNeilley Hotel and the Board of Trade, where a shot was put through his [Greek George’s] hand. He surrendered and the marshal escorted him to jail.

Barato spent a few days aboard the MacArthur “studying the slow process of healing in progress upon a vicious cut made by the Greek in his head and another in his left shoulder with an eight-inch blade.” George spent some time in jail, but when the steamer sailed away nobody in town would swear out a complaint against him. As the Gateway summed it up: “The representatives of the dignity of the United States government did not know what to do with the Greek except to turn him loose. As he has always borne a good reputation, public sentiment is generally in his favor.”

Rarely did a day pass without excitement when the steamers arrived, and as Seward grew, a ship docked every few days. The railroad dock at the south end of Fourth Avenue,¹ where the steamers arrived, proved fertile ground for humorous stories. The area wasn’t lighted properly at night, and occasionally a newcomer stepped “on thin air . . . and as the air compressed beneath him” descended rapidly to the water “where he floundered until a line was thrown to him by a spectator.” That happened to two “chee-chalkers”² in late November 1905, about ten minutes apart. On his way to board the Santa Ana, the first man to hit the water “shinnied up a pile and climbed out himself.” The second experienced the indignity of having a line thrown to him by a crowd of onlookers. Few serious injuries resulted from these incidents, so The Seward Gateway reported them as just another local spectator sport.

By October 1904, railroad builders had extended the tracks twenty-one miles north of Seward with 250 men working on the project. Alaska Central Railway (ACR) owners, always optimistic, expected to complete another ten miles that year and reached 100 to 125 miles by the end of 1905.³ With the large number of men working on blasting tunnels through the mountains and laying track, accidents increased.

In early August 1905, two horses drawing a railroad scow through some rapids lost their footing on loose boulders. The animals fell into the river and “were dragged down by the swift water and the weight of the scow and drowned.” The driver, a man known as Dutchy, became entangled in the tow rope “and was barely rescued by the other men on shore when he was going down with the horses.” Ironically, this was Dutchy’s last day of work. He quit immediately after the rescue.

Dutchy was lucky. He lived to quit. Dozens of other railroad laborers died during those early years. During most of 1906, the ACR excavated 4,000 feet of tunnels between Miles 49 and 53. Two of the tunnels were 300 feet but one of the seven tunnels stretched 1,000 feet. As spring turned to summer, the crews rushed to complete the tunnels before winter. The ACR paid tunnel diggers, called muckers, at least three dollars a day plus a fifty cents bonus for each foot gained over quota. Working in haste, many men died from falls, cave-ins, and dynamite explosions.

A typical accident happened at Mile 49 when driller George Bell pried a rock above him with a crowbar. The rock slipped, driving the handle into his stomach. Crew members took him to a makeshift hospital where he died the next day. About forty years old, Bell had worked for the railroad only three months. “It was understood by companions,” The Seward Gateway reported, “that the name he gave here was assumed.” Bell was buried in Seward’s temporary cemetery north of the town. Other accident victims were buried along the track not far from where they died.

Careless games played by laborers caused some accidents. In late August 1905, a race between two handcars loaded with railroad workers sent fifty-year-old George Marshall to the hospital with a “dislocated left knee, a sprained back, a cut scalp and other injuries.” These races often occurred after a hard day’s work as the men headed back to camp. As they raced each other home, the rear car would bump the front car, often violently. Some harmless accidents caused laughter. In October 1905, a handcar filled with workers traveling ahead of a train turned upside down when it collided with a cow. The engine behind it, pulling a caboose, passed by safely. “The fate of the cow was not investigated,” the newspaper noted, “but the participants in the disaster say they hope she is dead.”

Such steady rail construction together with Seward’s general business needs, demanded fast and frequent steamer service. Only so many ships sailed Alaskan waters, however, causing fierce competition among ports. Seward competed against Nome, Valdez, and Cordova, as well as the more prosperous southeastern ports such as Juneau and Ketchikan. John E. Ballaine, president of the Tanana Construction Company (builders of the Alaska Central Railway) had just returned from a trip Outside⁴ in the fall of 1904. He had tried to convince the Alaska Pacific Navigation Company (APNC) to “put a sixteen-knot steamer” on a direct route between Seattle and Seward beginning in May 1905. By December 1904, The Seward Gateway reported confidently that the APNC would run the direct steamer in a few days. They also reported that the Northwestern Commercial Company, of Nome fame, had also considered establishing a direct steamer run from Seattle to Seward.

With frequent steamer arrivals and no cable communication yet established, Seward had to figure out other ways to spot incoming ships and notify the town. Al Peel, an early town marshal, recalled frequently running with a friend to the top of Lowell Mountain (later called Mount Marathon) to look for incoming steamers. Once spotted, the two raced down the mountain to see who could be the first to ring a bell outside the Seward News Stand on Fourth Avenue. Then they placed bets on the steamer’s precise arrival time.

The steamers arrived and departed, but the arrival times were always uncertain. By August 1905, workers completed a cable system connecting the town to the outside world, and Seward sent its first message to Valdez: “The citizens of Seward are glad to be linked with you in promoting the interests of greater Alaska through cable just completed to this point.” It was signed U.S. Commissioner “H. H. Hildreth and Others.” Valdez Mayor Henry W. Miller replied: “Science and Progress have united to make us great; good fellowship and unity of purpose will make us greater. Valdez extends congratulations and best wishes.” Later that fall, the town began to receive steamer positions as they arrived in the ports on their way toward Seward, but too many other factors could affect a steamer’s progress so arrival times were still hard to predict. A common question in Seward remained: “When will the steamer arrive?”

Today it is difficult for us to appreciate the importance of a steamer arrival for an isolated Alaskan coastal town like Seward. The following description from an unpublished 1928 sketch captures the reality and excitement of twenty years earlier:

Once a week . . . the whistling of a certain “boat” arriving from the States [is heard]. There is scarcely a house in Seward which does not rejoice in advance at somebody or something to be brought by the vessel . . . What does she pour forth? People venturing from a business or wedding trip. New-comers willing to try their fortune as others have done. Books and newspapers, furniture and meat, raw materials and ready-made ware . . . . Above all, heaps of letters are to be unloaded. You get the ones bearing your address, you hurry to reach your home, you smile and weep over them. They are messengers hastening through continents and oceans to give you the love, the greetings, and thoughts of those you left behind.

By early 1905, the steamer Santa Clara sailed a direct route from Seattle to Valdez and Seward. Her owners, the Northwestern Steamship Company, added the Excelsior to the Seward run. In October, the Excelsior’s captain, a man named Jordan, arrived at Robinson Dock in Seattle to board his steamer, which should have been waiting for him. But it was gone. “As the captain had not been drinking,” The Seward Gateway reported, “he knew he was at the right dock, and he hunted up the wharf master and demanded” to know where his ship had gone.