Alaska Baptist Convention
The first Southern Baptist church in Alaska was First Baptist Church, Anchorage, organized in September 1943.
The new church had 17 members, including two civilians and 15 soldiers.
The church was founded by soldiers at nearby Fort Richardson, and later started a number of sister churches in Alaska.
The ABC was formed in 1946 as the union of several Alaskan Baptist churches. Although it petitioned the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) for recognition as a state convention in 1947, the SBC did not formally recognize the ABC until 1951, after the ABC had submitted a second petition for recognition in 1950. 
An amendment to the SBC's constitution had been required in order to allow the ABC, and several other small state conventions, to become associated with the SBC. In the meantime, in 1948, the ABC had received assistance from the SBC's Home Mission Board.
American Broadcasting Company
It was not until the late 1950s that the ABC network became a serious contender to NBC and CBS, and this was in large part due to the diverse range of programming that met the expectations of the public, such as westerns and detective series. Despite an almost 500% increase in advertising revenues between 1953 and 1958, the network only had a national reach of between 10% and 18% of the total U.S. population, as it still had relatively fewer affiliates than NBC and CBS. In 1957, ABC Entertainment president Ollie Trez discovered that the locally produced variety show "Bandstand" had pulled very strong ratings in the Philadelphia market on WFIL-TV; Trez ultimately negotiated a deal to take the show national, under the revised title "American Bandstand"; the show quickly became a social phenomenon by presenting new musical talent and dances to America's youth and helped make a star out of its host, Dick Clark.