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Loren, editor and publisher of the Cheechako News, sold a lot of ad space during the back-and-forth publicity campaigns by communities striving to become the administrative seat for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. When the campaigns were over, he offered unifying words for the future. (Photo courtesy of the KPC historical archive)

Community

No Simple Matter: Finding the borough a home — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Kenai Peninsula citizens voted in 1963 to create a second-class governing entity called the Kenai Peninsula…

Harold Pomeroy was the director of Alaska’s Territorial Civil Defense before becoming the first executive of the Kenai Peninsula Borough in 1964. (Photo courtesy of Alaska Digital Archives)

Community

No Simple Matter: Finding the borough a home — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Locating the physical site for the administration efforts of the Kenai Peninsula Borough on Binkley Street…

This 1955 aerial shows a portion of Joe and Mickey Faa’s homestead, including the Quonset hut that was on the property before it was acquired by Howard and Maxine Lee in 1948. The fields and other cleared land now house much of Soldotna’s growing medical establishment. (Photo courtesy of Al Hershberger)

Community

No Simple Matter: Finding the borough a home — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This series of articles, in a somewhat different form, first appeared in the Redoubt Reporter in…

The cover of Alaska Sourdough Stories.

Community

Stories from the Kosmos

I had already purchased the book online — and was waiting for it to arrive in my mailbox…

A skilled woodworker and craftsman, Steve Melchior poses in Seward with his pleasure boat, the Prospector, which he completed in August 1931. (Photo courtesy of the Melchior Family Collection)

Community

Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 7

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Stephan “Steve” Melchior parleyed a partially fabricated past into a respected life as a miner and…

The front page of the Detroit News on Oct. 14, 1928, featured photos of Steve Melchior and his pet moose Elsie. Melchior had traveled with Elsie from Seward to Detroit by steamship and railroad.

Community

Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 6

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Stephan “Steve” Melchior had parleyed a partially fabricated past into a respected life as a miner…

In September 1946, the Alaska Sportsman Magazine published “Moose Ranch,” an article by Mamie “Niska” Elwell. The story describes Steve Melchior’s moose-ranching operation from the 1920s and features two photographs of Melchior.

Community

Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Stephan “Steve” Melchior parleyed a partially fabricated past into a respected life as a miner and…

Posing in front of Steve Melchior’s cabin on the Killey River in 1912 are (left) packer/cook Ferdinand “Fritz” Posth and hunting guide William “Wild Bill” Dewitt, with two trophy Dall sheep heads. (Photo from E. Marshall Scull’s 1914 hunting memoir, “Hunting in the Arctic and Alaska”)

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Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: An adulthood constructed on a web of lies eventually led Stephan “Steve” Melchior to leave his…

Capt. Karl Kircheiß, a decorated German sailor, visited Steve Melchior in Seward in 1932.

Community

Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: An adulthood constructed on a web of lies eventually led Stephan “Steve” Melchior to leave his…

This is the most famous photograph of Steve Melchior, as a copy of it resides in the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. The Melchior family owns a very similar photograph, with a note in pencil from Steve Melchior on the back. The note, written for family members back in Germany in the late 1920s when Melchior was suffering from rheumatism, says, “That is the only way I can get out because my legs won’t walk anymore. I don’t like driving a car, and the dogs take me wherever I want to go. The one in the front is called Bill (in German, Wilhelm), and the one on the left is called Waldman. The black one on the right is called Nick or Nikolaus. Three good, loyal workers, my bodyguard.”

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Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: By at least his early 20s, Steve Melchior had begun to fabricate a past that would…

Between 1879 and 1892, Stephan Melchior (far left, middle row) performed his mandatory Prussian military service. He was a member of the Eighth Rhineland Infantry Regiment No. 70 in Trier, Germany. (Photo courtesy of the Melchior Family Collection)

Community

Steve Melchior: Treasured peninsula pioneer with a sketchy past — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although I could not have written this series without the assistance of numerous individuals, I want…

Frank Rowley and his youngest child, Raymond, stand in knee-deep snow in front of the protective fence around the main substation for Mountain View Light & Power in Anchorage in 1948 or ’49. This photo was taken a year or two before Rowley moved to Kenai to begin supplying electrical power to the central peninsula. (Photo courtesy of the Rowley Family)

Community

Let there be light: The electrifying Frank Rowley — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A similar version of this two-part story concerning the life of Frank Rowley and the ways…

This is the Kenai Power complex. The long side of the plant faces the Frank Rowley home, seen here at the right side of the photograph. (Photo courtesy of the Rowley Family)

Community

Let there be light: The electrifying Frank Rowley — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A similar version of this two-part story concerning the life of Frank Rowley and the ways…