Author Archives: APR News

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, for the loan of the Charles Sheldon albums in order that these images could be digitized and included in Alaska’s Digital Archives.

Naturalist Charles Sheldon (1867-1928) was an authority on big game animals, particularly Alaskan mountain sheep and bear.  He participated in a drive which eventually led to the creation of Denali National Park (originally Mt. McKinley National Park).

The Charles Sheldon Papers contain Charles Sheldon’s correspondence, diaries of exploration and hunting trips in Alaska, manuscripts, and miscellaneous other papers.  The albums from the Shelburne Museum contain photographs chiefly of landscapes and game animals.

Charles Sheldon Papers, from the Shelburne Museum

The Captain Ralph W. Savory Papers consist of correspondence, photographs, posters, newspaper clippings, awards, and memorabilia relating to Savory’s career in aviation. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, sweeping changes took place in Alaskan aviation. Savory, a private and commercial pilot, was a witness to this transition.

Captain Ralph Walter Savory (1909-2010), chief pilot for the Alaska region of Pan American World Airways, learned to aviate at the old Curtiss-Wright Flying Service in San Mateo, California. He soloed there in 1928. He came to Alaska in 1934, shipping his airplane by boat to Cordova, reassembling it, and flying to Anchorage. From Anchorage he moved to McGrath and did assorted bush flying for a year. He worked for Star Air Service for three years, flying the Kuskokwim and Bristol Bay region. In 1938, Pacific Alaska Airways, a predecessor company of Pan American, needed a pilot; Savory took the job and moved to Fairbanks, getting in on the ground floor of PAA’s efforts to build an Alaskan airline. He flew the Nome mail run and served as co-pilot on Pan Am between Fairbanks and Juneau. He flew a number of firsts in Alaskan aviation. Savory was identified with Pan American’s 707 program from its inception in October, 1958. In 1960, he ranked among the 20 top commercial pilots in the world in the amount of jet-transport flight time. He flew over much of the globe in the Boeing 707 jets, serving on the transatlantic, transpacific, and Alaska runs. He also flew to Moscow in connection with Vice-President Richard Nixon’s visit there, and the transpolar run from London to Seattle. Savory was assigned to Seattle from 1946, except for temporary tours of duty elsewhere. (From clippings in folder 6 of the collection: Fairbanks Daily News Miner, 11 August 1950, and Seattle Times, 10 April 1960.)

Recorded interviews with Ralph Savory are found in the Oral History collection (call number H2008-03).

Also see the Pioneer Aviators Project Jukebox for interviews, film clips, and more photographs.

http://tinyurl.com/28sd6qm

Naturalist Charles Sheldon (1867-1928) was an authority on big game animals, particularly Alaskan mountain sheep and bear.  He participated in a drive which eventually led to the creation of Denali National Park (originally Mt. McKinley National Park).

The Charles Sheldon Papers contain Charles Sheldon’s correspondence, diaries of exploration and hunting trips in Alaska, manuscripts, and miscellaneous other papers.

http://vilda.alaska.edu/u?/cdmg11,19363

This collection primarily covers the activities of Joe Crosson’s flying career in Alaska and the Arctic from 1926 through 1949.  Photographs, correspondence, newspaper and magazine articles chronicle the transition in Alaska from ground to air transportation as well as historic flights in Alaska and Antarctica.  There are also photographs and news clippings of his sister Marvel’s flying career as well as photographs and papers of his wife Lillian from her time as a student at the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines.

http://tinyurl.com/2c4nxvu

Ernst Hanauer (1915-1977) was born in Munich, Germany.  He and two sisters left Nazi Germany for the United States in 1937 to escape anti-Semitism.  Following a visit to Alaska in the summer of 1947, he returned in 1948 to make Fairbanks, Alaska, his home.  He was the northernmost upholsterer in the United States until about 1975.

The Ernst Hanauer Papers consist of a small number of papers related to Hanauer’s upholstery business in Fairbanks, Alaska (correspondence, advertisements, receipts); biographical materials; and photographs.  The images are of Hanauer and his activities, from the time of his boyhood in Germany to the 1970s.  They include images of the Fairbanks flood of 1967 and its effect upon Hanauer’s upholstery shop.  Also included are eight historical images of Seward, Alaska, 1906, by photographer Evans.

Only images 33-43 are currently digitized and online. They are historical images of Seward, Alaska, 1906, by photographer Evans, and the views of Fairbanks and Juneau, and Mt. McKinley.

http://vilda.alaska.edu/u?/cdmg11,19072

In 1925, Norman H. Read (1891-1992) was part of the first expedition to climb Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest peak in North America. Read returned to make a second ascent of the mountain in 1950, at the age of sixty.

The Norman H. Read Mount Logan Papers consist of Read’s accounts of his ascents of Mount Logan in 1925 and 1950, as well as expedition plans, news clippings, publications, and more than one thousand photographs, most of them taken during the expeditions.

Only images 1079-1092 are currently digitized and online.

LINK: http://vilda.alaska.edu/u?/cdmg11,19084

The John W. Chapman Family Papers consist of material relating to John Wight Chapman and May Seely Chapman and their work as Episcopal missionaries at Anvik, Alaska (1887-1930), as well as family correspondence, genealogical information, photographs, and other papers. Also found in the collection are papers of the Chapmans’ daughter, Ada C. Chapman, and a few papers of the Chapmans’ son, Henry H. Chapman.

Album 1 includes 94 black and white photographs, with labels dated years 1918, 1919, and 1920.  Album 2 includes 60 black and white photographs and a hard cover with hand-drawn map; the photograph labels are dated years 1920, 1921, and 1922.

http://vilda.alaska.edu/u?/cdmg11,19195

These photographs were taken between 1899 and 1911 and depict life in the region around Forts Gibbon and Egbert. Included are hunting parties, military personnel, camp buildings, scenery, dog sledding and skiing. Steamships are shown loading wood and unloading passengers, in dock for the winter, and so on. Judge James Wickersham, the District Judge at Eagle in 1900, is shown with his family at a social function at Fort Egbert.

C. S. Farnsworth  was born in 1863 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. He had a common school education . At age 18 he worked with a telegraph construction gang until the summer of  1883 when he was appointed a cadet at West Point. He served in the Dakota Territory and in Montana. He was assigned as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of North Dakota in 1893. He served in Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and Cuba until April 1899 when he was promoted to Captain.

In June 1899, his company was ordered to Alaska. Captain Farnsworth, commanding Company E, Seventh Infantry, served in Alaska from 1899 to 1901 overseeing the construction of Fort Gibbon near Tanana and Fort Egbert near Eagle. He was also in charge of constructing telegraph lines in this part of Alaska.

He returned to Fort Gibbon in 1910 as a Major, assigned to the 16th U.S. Infantry and remained for one year.

http://vilda.alaska.edu/u?/cdmg11,10340