How a young City of Anchorage took shape in the decades after incorporation in 1920

Part of a continuing weekly series on local history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

On Nov. 23, 1920, area residents voted in favor of incorporation, and it was the moment when Anchorage transitioned from a government-run railroad base into a self-governing town. In many ways, Anchorage’s birth occurs with incorporation in 1920 and not the founding in 1915. This article is the first of four celebrating the 100th anniversary of Anchorage incorporation.

We begin with a history of local governments. Though geography defines a limited Anchorage Bowl, its history these past 100 years contains a multitude of civic structures.

From 1915 through 1920, the Alaska Engineering Commission (AEC) ruled Anchorage, the base from which to complete its primary mission of constructing the Alaska Railroad. There was no police force with ranks filled by residents, only soldiers and marshals. The AEC and chamber of commerce created an advisory council that provided a small semblance of home rule and served as a buffer between the AEC and those unaffiliated with the railroad.

In November 1920, voters approved the incorporation of the City of Anchorage as a self-governing entity. A mayor and a small city council were sufficient to oversee what was then a relatively insignificant city. The city manager position was added in 1946. The next two articles in this series will offer more details on the process, context and repercussions of incorporation.

Those Anchorage-area residents outside city limits were theoretically under territorial and federal authority. In reality, these residents were largely free to do whatever they wanted from 1920 through the late 1940s. The Alaska Highway Patrol, the Alaska State Troopers' predecessor, was created in 1941 to enforce territorial laws outside local police departments' limits. However, they were not fully authorized as peace officers until 1948. The military presence in Alaska during the 1930s consisted entirely of roughly 300 soldiers at Fort Seward in Haines.

In 1935, the territorial legislature authorized the creation of public utility districts (PUDs) to provide essential services for any geographically proximate group of 200 individuals. Congress prohibited the creation of counties in Alaska, and the borough system did not yet exist. While of limited use in 1935, this legislation successfully predicted the extensive residential development outside city limits in the coming decades. In 1939, Anchorage was a minor railroad hub with 3,945 residents. By 1950, the greater Anchorage population had exploded to more than 30,000, though only a little more than 11,000 lived within city limits.

Though critical to local history, PUDs are commonly misunderstood in both form and function.

Those residents outside city limits could hardly afford to wait for the city to extend its service coverage. PUDs were a quick solution. PUDs were authorized to collect taxes, offer bonds and collect fees to provide the most basic public services like water, electricity, garbage collection, road construction, dust control, grading, signage, parks and traffic lights.

Spenard was the first neighborhood outside Anchorage limits to create a PUD, with voters approving its creation 187 to 26 in May 1948. Eastchester, now called Fairview, and Mountain View followed suit in August 1948 and November 1949.

[Related: Here’s how Anchorage’s Mountain View, Fairview and Government Hill neighborhoods were named]

The Spenard PUD, the largest local utility district, could afford to adequately fund its mostly volunteer fire department and contract with the city for sewer and water. Eastchester and Mountain View eventually contracted with the military for their outfall sewer. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, none had a regular police presence.

Escaping city taxes was part of the appeal of living outside Anchorage’s borders, and PUDs were limited to property taxes at a maximum rate of 1 percent of the assessed value. As a result, the PUDs were disinclined to expand services, raise rates or collect taxes. In some years, PUDs did not collect any taxes. For example, in 1954, the Spenard and, by then renamed, Fairview PUDs did not collect taxes. The Fairview PUD frequently ran newspaper advertisements calling for all Anchoragites to “shop and save in low-rent, low-tax Fairview.”

PUDs were correspondingly slow to react to resident concerns. For example, packs of wild dogs roamed midcentury Anchorage, especially in Spenard. In 1955, 22-month-old Danny Betz was attacked and killed by a feral dog pack just outside his Spenard home. By the mid-1950s, packs of wild dogs, often more than 30 strong, regularly harassed area school children and churchgoers, in serious and scarring attacks.

The City of Anchorage hired two dogcatchers in the immediate wake of Betz’s death. However, the Spenard PUD did not take action until 1958, finally creating a dogcatcher position. Said Spenard dogcatcher quickly captured 28 feral dogs in 10 days but could only describe the ongoing threat as “diminished.”

Mountain View disbanded its PUD when annexed into Anchorage in 1954. Anchorage annexed the remaining independent portions of Fairview in 1960. Within the Anchorage Bowl, Spenard and developments farther south, including the oddities of Glen Alps and Basher, remained independent of Anchorage proper. Many residents in those un-annexed areas took their complaints of local inaction up a step to state legislators.

By 1963, those legislators had grown tired of the constant complaints. Citing a lack of local progress, the legislature forced populated areas to incorporate — the Mandatory Borough Act. On January 1, 1964, the rest of the unincorporated communities merged into the Greater Anchorage Area Borough. Thus, the Anchorage Bowl was left with two primary and often antagonistic local governments, the GAAB and Anchorage proper.

Still, while the GAAB was more inclined towards civic improvements than its PUD predecessors, it was not the most proactive government. There was no regular police presence in the GAAB until 1969, and then only in Spenard.

Without local building codes, many of the homes built outside the city borders were poorly assembled, including homes with newspaper insulation, wiring stapled to roofs, no built-in heating source and uneven foundations. Said one Spenardian, “Half of Spenard here was just daylight basements. You know, basements that hadn’t been finished with staircases coming up to the front.” As late as the early 1970s, nothing south of Tudor Road was zoned, resulting in haphazard construction and urban design.

Discussions of a merger began as early as 1966 but were not actualized until 1975 with the creation of the Municipality of Anchorage, our current form of local government.

Over the years, many area residents lived in one entity and worked, shopped or entertained in another. In 1950, a Fairview resident could work in Mountain View, shop downtown, and drink in Spenard, crossing through four civic authorities without much mind. But there were some significant differences. Free of city laws, establishments in the red light districts could trade in drugs and prostitution with little to no fear of law enforcement.

Eastchester Flats, modern-day Fairview between East 15th Avenue and Chester Creek, was Anchorage’s primary red-light district in the 1950s. After the Flats was annexed in 1954, Rogers Park residents petitioned for annexation, fearing that if they remained independent, the criminal businesses on the other side of Chester Creek might attempt to move into their neighborhood.

More than just outright criminals profited from the area division. Many otherwise legitimate business owners funded lawsuits to fight annexation, knowing taxes and zoning requirements would cut into their profits. In 1954, U.S. District Court Judge George Folta noted that much of the opposition to annexation “stems from the operators of illicit and disreputable places who resist annexation in order to avoid police regulation.” And Anchorage police did quickly raid newly annexed businesses, sometimes waiting outside until after midnight to strike as soon as legally permitted.

Fires perhaps best illustrate the difference between local governments. On Feb. 1, 1957, a fire gutted the Carrs grocery store in Fairview. City firefighters arrived on the scene first but then realized that the store was outside their jurisdiction. They sat and watched, waiting for the volunteer Fairview fire department to arrive. The store was quickly rebuilt, incidentally becoming the first concrete building in Anchorage constructed during winter.

Far more dramatically, the Gold Rush Motor Lodge caught fire on Jan. 13, 1970. The Gold Rush was on Northern Lights Boulevard, between Dawson and Cheechako Streets, where the longtime derelict but now demolished Northern Lights Inn later stood. City firefighters answered the call, but Northern Lights formed the border between the city and GAAB. The Gold Rush was on the wrong side of the street. While some individual firefighters from the city did wade into the blaze, the commander refused to participate. He, the rest of his crew, and a fire truck watched from across the street.

Five people died. The Gold Rush fire is sometimes cited as accelerating the move toward an Anchorage unification. But GAAB residents voted against a merger that year and the next.

Next week’s article offers a look at what life was like in 1920 Anchorage at the time of incorporation.

Key sources:

“Annexation is Upheld.” Anchorage Daily Times, April 29, 1960, 15.

“Big Market Back in Operation in 54 Working Days.” Anchorage Daily Times, April 24, 1957, 22.

“Campaign Against Wild, Loose Dogs Opens Tomorrow.” Anchorage Daily Times, August 16, 1955, 7.

“Carrs Destroyed by Fire.” Anchorage Daily Times, February 1, 1957, 1, 11.

“Spenard’s Dog Catcher Traps 28 of Wild Pack.” Anchorage Daily Times, January 21, 1958, 1.

“Thanks and Congratulations to the Progressive Administration of the Fairview Public Utility District for a year of Achievement.” Anchorage Daily Times, November 26, 1954, 17.

Wangsness, Paul H. A History of the Unification of the City of Anchorage and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough. Anchorage: Anchorage Urban Observatory, 1977.