THE NEW SPRING SUITS
Arrived on the First Boat
Men who enjoy the liner
things of life are quick to
realize the rare quality of
C ME FELIX
NONE BUT THE BEST
Corner 4th and D Sts.
Felix Brown & Co.
\VK HAVE
Souvenir Spoons
WALTER A. LORD
DIAMONDS, WATCHES, GOLD JEWELRY
Near Harmony Theatre.
Northern transfer Company
COAL AND WOOD.
GENERAL TRANSFER BUSINESS.
PHONE 47-Y.
4th and D
C. P. PEDERSEN, .\lgr.
CARROL & CO.
Fourth St., near E
MEN’S OUTFITTERS
Complete stock of Clothing,
. Shoes and furnishings.
Pioneer Sheet
Metal Works
YUKON STOVES
— AND —
HEATERS
Corner Fifth and C Sts.
Anchorage - - Alaska
Union Laundry
and Bath House
Fourth Ave., Between H and I,
Anchorage
OUR WORK IS GUARANTEED
—and—
SANITARY
THK liAIMiKKT AND CLEANEST
BATH T1TB8 IN ANCHORAGE
LEARN TO DANCE.
Latest Dances Taught. Begin
ners given special attention. For ap
pointment call at third house from
C on 6tli Ave.
WM. BUNTING.
C. HENNING
TAILOR.
Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s
Suits Cleaned, Pressed and
Repaired. 4th Ave. and D St.
WOOD
COAL
YUKON TRANSFER CO.
General Expressing.
F. A. ACKLES Phone 89-R
740 Fourth St.
BAXTER’S
All Magazines
All Newspapers
All The Time!
B. C. NICHOLS
£
1
9>
5fi
i
WATCH MAKER AND
JEWELER.
X
I
J£
Anchorage, Alaska.
' m
fWWlfWifiifiSfiS
the Fairbanks!
*
4th and D
*
*
MEN’S CLOTHIERS
*
*
* ROY FAIRBANKS, Prop, ig
* m;
fi*******************
Best pool tables at Peterson’s. 399
TEN THOUSAND PER CENT. ON
OUR INVESTMENT IN ALASKA
OUR LARGEST, MOST VALUABLE AND MOST NEG
LECTED OUTLYING POSSESSION, WITHOUT EX
ERTING HERSELF YIELDS THE PROVERB
IAL HUNDREDFOLD IN HALF CENTURY.
In the March number of “The Na
tion’s Business,” a monthly publica
tion issued under the auspices of the
Chambers of Commerce of the United
States (of which the local chamber is
a member) in Washington, D. C.,
Hon. James Wickersham, delegate to
congress from Alaska, contributes the
following very informing and accur
ate history of Alaska, from the time
of the American occupation up to the
present, complete as follows:
As if anxious to justify herself and
those who had faith in her in the
stormy days of 1867, when William
H. Seward took his political life in his
hands in order to forge upon his un
willing country a prize of marvelous
richness, Alaska has already returned
to the people of the United States
dividends of ten thousand per cent.
That is a significant fact for us to
bear in mind, as March 80, 1017,
marks the fiftieth anniversary of the
acquisition of the territory by the
United States. When Seward reach
ed an agreement with Russia for the
transfer of the Muscovite’s American
colony to the United States for a
consideration of $7,200,000, it must
have required stiff moral courage and
a keen vision of the worth of Alaska
to withstand the angry flings and
taunts of his opponents. Amazing
yarns were spun about the northern
territory, and extravagant similes
were invented. But Alaska, without
yielding up a tithe of her treasures,
has put her detractors out of coun
tenance.
She is our largest and most valu
able and most neglected outlying pos
session. Her population of G4,000 is
scarcely larger than when we ac
quired the territory 50 years ago. In
her 590,000 square miles, one-fifth of
the area of the united States, every
man has elbow room. In fact, if the
land were equally divided between the
inhabitants, to each person would fall
a domain of more than nine square
miles. Side by side with this, look
at some of the thickly populated por
tions of the earth’s surface, at Porto
Rico, for instance, every one of whose
3,435 square miles must support 325
persons, or even the United States
proper, with its 34.3 persons to the
square mile.
To attempt to visualize the Alaska
of the future is to indulge in dreams
of empire, because Alaska is fash
ioned in a titanic way. So vast are
her mineral deposits that despite a
yearly output of more than $32,000,
000 it is permissible exaggeration to
say that her mineral resources have
not been touched. Her fisheries are
yielding a return of $20,000,000 a
year and more, and her 64,000,000
acres of land capable of being turned
to agricultural uses ought to support
a rural population of at least 10,
000.000. .
What will not the development of
this storehouse of wealth and beauty
mean to the people of the United
States? Which one of the warring
nations c\f today, for instance, would
not give its very soul for Alaska’s de
posits of copper? And her coal, cov
eted surely by any people that has its
heart set on the control of the broad
expanse of the Pacific. If some Loch
invar of a nation should come out of
the east to attack us, the adjacent
islands, as pointed out by a recent
writer, would furnish a naval base
which, in conjunction with one on our
western coast and one in Hawaii,
would be our best defense. In view of
these and a hundred other reasons,
the wonder grows that we have done
so little with our northern possession.
That we have done no more is due no
| doubt to the fact that some of the
ignorance which obscured Alaska in
the days of Seward still lingers in
jthe popular imagination. Fifty years
ago ninety-nine hundredths of the ter
ritory was said to be utterly worth
less; the cold was so intense, it was
averred, that it was out of the ques
i tion for American miners to develop
; the mineral wealth, while as for agri
culture, that was too impossible to
discuss.
Slowly Alaska emerges from the
fog, and we begin to see her in her
true lineaments. Not as a region in
which nature guards her wealth with
in walls of impenetrable ice does she
now appear. On the contrary rhe
stands forth as an empire in the mak
ing. Nature has been lavish, but she
has left to man his part to play.
Roads must be built before the si ttlcr
can be lured to spots where the foot
[of white man has never trod, the
! shrill whistle of the locomotive must
' echo through the now unbroken for
est, rivers must be spanned, indus
tries created, schools founded. Un
! lamed natuie must be tempered to
I man’s needs. A mighty task ? Yes.
but Alaska is worthy of the effort,
|; nd she will repay with the pmveib
ian hundredfold.
Do you know that men in Alaska
have succeeded in growing three !
crops of strawberries a year, and that
there have been times in some sections
of the country when the inhabitants
: had to import ice for domestic pur
noses or go without it? Yet you wll
still hear people loosely refer to Alas
ka as an Arctic country. Why, near
!;. three-fourths of the territory lies
within the north temperate zone, and
the region bordering the Tolar sea is |
the only one in which Arctic :on<ii
tions are found. The experience of
those long resident in Alaska shows i
that the climate is exceptionally
healthful and the white population is j
more exempt from such discuss as
pneumonia, grippe and typhoid than
j in the states. The coast region hat a :
comparatively mild winter, with cool
summers, while the interior has cold ^
i winters, with warm but short sum
! mers. The climate of the coast re
gion may be compared with that of
Scotland and the Scandinavian penin
sula, although somewhat warmer,
while that of the interior is not un
like the climate of Alberta, Saskat
chewan and Manitoba, in Canada.
Red-blooded men, defying hardship
and death, intent only on making
their “stake” and then returning to
civilization, were carried to Alaska
with the great gold rush. Rut with
the exhaustion of the richer placer
areas, there was a marked decrease of
population until attention was drawn
to the agricultural possibilities of the j
country. Now there is a steady in
crease. In 1910 there were 04,356
people in the territory, of whom 25,
331 were Indians. The white popula
tion is now perhaps 50,000. Immi
grants of the right kind, of course,
must be encouraged to go to Alaska
and become home builders, because
in no other way is development pos
sible.
Primitive conditions are giving way i
slowly before the increasing stream
of settlers which is following the gov
ernment railroad from the Pacific
coast to the interior. This railroad
construction will make accessible min
eral, timber and agricultural lands
and open to commerce the coal fields
near the coast and in the interior.
Seventy-two miles of track was in
Operation on November first of last
year out of Anchorage, and eight
miles was ready for the steel. An
additional 50 miles was under con
struction. Resides this, the Alaska
Northern railroad, purchased by the
government, was being operated last
summer out of Seward as far as Kern
creek, a distance of 71 miles. In
Central Alaska are large areas of low
grade alluvial, gold-bearing ground
which can be rendered profitable only
by means of cheaper fuel or cheaper
power. The Nenana coal fields will
furnish both. There are also numer
ous promising lode mines in the Fair
banks and other districts of the in
terior which can be developed with
cheap coal. Industrial communities
will arise because of the development
of mines and the reclamation and cul
tivation of farm lands, and homes will
be founded. And lastly, and of su
' preme importance, these coal fields
will supply every naval need of ours
on the Pacific.
Gold! Gold! Gold!—yas, and cop
per, tin, antimony, and silver, petro
leum, marble and gypsum, are all
there, Alaska’s greatest source of
wealth, the seemingly inexhaustible
store from which in the year ending
June 30, 1016, she poured forth miner
als to the value of *32,854,229, an in
crease of $13,788,563 over the pre
ceding year. There, too, are the prac
tically untouched fields of coal and
some iron ores, besides silver-lead,
zinc, quicksilver, peat, graphite, as
bestos, tungsten and mica. Copper
has a romance no less than gold, and
where there were but three or four
mines operating a couple of years ago,
15 are now steadily mining and ship
ping ore, and the value of the output
has increased from $3,579,474 in 1913
to $26,488,288 in the fiscal year 1916.
One hundred thousand square
miles, 04,000,00 acres, that can
be made available for tilling and graz
ing purposes, more agricultural land
than supports 10,000,000 stock farm
ers and agriculturalists in the Scandi
navian peninsula, and yet men raise
their eyebrows at the mention of
farming in Alaska. That she has ag
ricultural possibilities, however, has
been proven by men who were willing
to justify their faith by intelligent la
bor. The work, too, of the experiment
stations has helped to dispel doubt,
and today there are many excellent
farms in different sections of the
country where potatoes of fine quality
and all kinds of hardy vegetables are
grown to perfection, besides annual
crops of barley, rye, oats and some
times wheat.
In order to show that potato grow
ing could be made profitable in the
Tanana valey, where there are 1,000
square miles of land available for ag
riculture, the Fairbanks experiment
station, in 1911, grew .‘10 tons of po
tatoes on seven acres which, if sold
at five cents a pound, would be worth
$3,000. In 1915 the station sold sev
eral tons of potatoes at an average of
a little more than $100 a ton. The
United States paid less than two
cents an acre for that land.
During tne larming season of l!flb
the Alaskan Engineering Commission
purchased from a number of the
homesteaders in the Matnauska val
ley 10,000 bushels of home (frown po
tatoes. These potatoes were of prime
quality and the homesteaders real
ized a substantial profit thereon. Ap
proximately 500 homestead entries
have been made in the Matanuska
valley and the other country tributary
to the upper reaches of Cook inlet.
Alaska’s waters make the fishing
industry her best source of wealth
save one. While the great yield of
salmon is the most important item in
the fishery output, which amounted in
the last fiscal year to $20,999,343, ex
clusive of acquatic furs, other valu
able food fishes are found in abund
ance, such as halibut, cod and herring.
The natives are largely dependent
upon fishing for a livelihood, 22,462
persons being engaged in the differ
ent branches of its industries. Of
these, 11,289 were whites, 5,000 na
tives, 1,631 Japanese, 2,190 Chinese
and 2,352 miscellaneous, including
Filipinos, Mexicans, negroes and oth
ers. ,
The sore-footed prospector or miner
of a decade ago, dragging his weary
way through the unbroken country in
his endless search for gold, always
gold, cried for joy when he stumbled
upon a moose or caribou run or one
of the crude trails hewed through the
wilderness, for roads there were none.
If he was fortunate enough to own a
horse, the poor animal struggled
through swamp and timber, more of
ten knee-deep in mud than on solid
ground. Roads have been built dur
ing the past decade, not the fine high
ways of many of our states, it is true,
but they mark the beginning of a
systemtof military and post roads
which are of incalculable benefit to
the regions through which they run.
The future of Alaska depending as
much on the construction of roads as
on the building of railroads, the gov
ernment has adopted the policy of
setting aside 65 per cent of the mon
eys paid into the Alaska fund for the
construction and repair rf roads and
trails outside of incorporated towns.
(Continued on Page 3.)
Tony’s Cafe
_/
OPPOSMRE EMPRESS
THEATRE.
TABLES FOR LADIES—
—NEWLY REMODELED
FOR SALE
CRESCENT
HOTEL
COR. FOURTH AND C.
ALSO 24 x 130 FEET
ADJOINING HOTEL.
SEE OWNERS
F. W. Redwood & Co.
j Tex Jones R. C. Jeffery
The Panhandle
CIGARS
CANDIES
TOBACCOS
FRUIT
NUTS
4th AVE. NEAR C STREET
Taxi and Transfer
CITY AUTO SERVICE
PHONE 89-R.
LAUNCHES FOR CHARTER
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Office: Next to Labor Temple
FRATERNAL ORDERS.
MASONS
Anchorage Masonic Club
meets first and third Thursday
in month. G.C.HAMMOND, Sec.
L. O. 0. M. 1534
Regular meeting every Wed
nesday night at 8 o’clock,
at A. L. U. Hall.
JAS. L. CORT, Sec.
BILL’S CLUB.
J. T. WESTERMANN, Secy.
Meets at Club Rooms every
Friday evening at 8 o’clock.
DANISH CLUB
HAMLET
Meets Every Friday, 7:30 P. M.
A. P. Rasmussen, Sec’y.
EUREKA HOUSE.
mnei
To all Carpenters: United Broth
erhood of Carpenters and .loi tiers of
America, Local No. 1473 meets at the
Anchor Club rooms. 4th and >1 Kt. ev
ery Tuesday evening at 7:30 p. tn.
J. S. BALDWIN, Sec:
Inlet Soda Works
W. A. TAYLOR, Proprietor
Manufacturers of all kinds of
MINERAL WATERS, SODA
CIDER, SYRUPS.
AGENTS FOR GRAPE JUICE
Anchorage - - Alaska
MONEY TO LOAN
Short term loans on Real
Estate. Bills discounted.
R. NICHOLLS, 615 7th Ave.