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Photo provided by the KPC archive of historical photographs Ed Back, left, and Bill Gross chat with Ridgeway homeowner Betty Karsten as they install a natural gas hookup to her home in 1961. Betty and Emmett Karsten became Alaska’s first civilian consumers of natural gas.

Life

Fortune and misfortune on the Kenai — Part 1

Sometimes timing is everything

A headstone for J.E. Hill is photographhed in Anchorage, Alaska. (Findagrave.com)

Life

Night falls on the Daylight Kid — Part 2

“Bob,” he said, “that crazy fool is shooting at us.”

Page from Seward daily gateway. (Alaska State Library, Archives and Museum, Juneau, A.K.)

Life

Night falls on the Daylight Kid — Part 1

Night Falls on the Daylight Kid—Part One By Clark Fair

On Oct. 3, 1945, the Spokane Chronicle published this A.P. photo of Miriam Mathers and her goats as she prepared to board a Seattle steamship bound for Seward.

Life

Tragedy and triumph of the Goat Woman — Part 4

Mathers had only three cents in her purse when she arrived in Kenai

The Associated Press caught up to Miriam Mathers in 1943 and took this photo when she was trying to move overland to Alaska with her goats and other animals.

Life

Tragedy and triumph of the Goat Woman — Part 3

Her quest for Alaska had begun, but another date with tragedy lay just around the corner

In about 1904, the full family of Arthur and Ellen Davidson (front row) posed for this family portrait. Miriam Davidson, the third born, is in the dark blouse on the right end of the back row; she is standing next to her older siblings, Cora and William. (Photo courtesy of the David Family Collection)

Life

Tragedy and triumph of the Goat Woman — Part 2

Mathers was dead.

Better Homes & Gardens article photo, 1955 Rusty Lancashire, who befriended her neighbor, Miriam Mathers, climbs into her vehicle in front of the Kenai Commercial Company store in Kenai.

Life

Tragedy and triumph of the Goat Woman — Part 1

Florence Lorraine “Rusty” Lancashire first met her neighbor, the old Goat Woman, in the fall of 1948

Chester LeRoy Oughton was in his mid-60s and still serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in Alaska when these photos were taken at McNeil Island federal penitentiary in Washington in 1972. (Image courtesy of the National Archives in San Francisco)

Life

The Seward jailbreak of 1952 — Part 2

Prisoners Frank Charles Oliver and Chester LeRoy Oughton had been foiled in their attempt to reach the central…

Chester LeRoy Oughton’s entry photos at the Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary in 1953. Oughton was convicted of first-degree murder in Alaska. (Image courtesy of the National Archives in San Francisco)

Life

The Seward Jailbreak of 1952 — Part 1

The fugitives were Franklin Charles Oliver and Chester LeRoy Oughton.

Photos from Seward Community Library Association collection in Alaska Digital Archives S.S. Yukon is perched half left on the rocks after the steamship broke in half, the stern sank out of sight. This forward section remained wedged on the rocks off Cape Fairfield, near the entrance of Prince William Sound.

Life

The heroic rise and tragic fall of ‘The Screaming Swede’ — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the second part of a two-part story about Jimmy Johnson, a commercial fisherman who…

This is the memorial plaque that since 2001 has adorned the grave of James William Johnson, also known as “The Screaming Swede.” Photo courtesy of Peggy Arness.

Life

The heroic rise and tragic fall of ‘The Screaming Swede’ — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I would like to thank Peggy Arness for access to her history files and the Resurrection…

The spruce-covered cliffs behind Cliff House were the inspiration for the cabin’s name. (Photo courtesy of the Fair Family Collection)

Life

Twists and turns in the history of Cliff House — Part 3

So many oddities. So many contradictions. So many holes in the story.

Robert “Bob” Huttle, posing here next to Cliff House, spent the night in this cabin in April 1934 and mused about a possible murder there. (Photo courtesy of the Huttle Collection)

Life

Twists and turns in the history of Cliff House — Part 2

How much of the doctor’s actions Bob Huttle knew when he stayed in Cliff House 10 years later…

This 1940s-era image is one of few early photographs of Cliff House, which once stood near the head of Tustumena Lake. (Photo courtesy of the Secora Collection)

Life

Twists and turns in the history of Cliff House — Part 1

Here, then, is the story of Cliff House, as least as I know it now.

File

Life

Peninsula Crime: Bad men … and dumb ones — Part 2

Here, in Part Two and gleaned from local newspapers, are a few examples of the dim and the…

File

Life

Peninsula Crime: Bad men … and dumb ones — Part 1

Gleaned from local newspapers, are a few examples of the dim and the dumb.

In this 1950s image, Chell Bear (left) and Lawrence McGuire display a stringer of small trout they caught through the ice in front of the homestead cabin of Bob Mackey, for whom the Mackey Lakes were named. (Photo courtesy of the Kenai Peninsula College Historic Photo Repository)

Life

History with a sense of humor, Part 2

The second in a two-part collection of humorous tales gleaned from old newspapers on the central Kenai Peninsula.

The welcome sign for the City of Kenai, as seen in this city Facebook page photo.

Life

History with a sense of humor, Part 1

The first part of a two-part collection of humorous tales gleaned from old newspapers on the central Kenai…

This undated John E. Thwaites photo, perhaps taken near Seward, shows the S.S. Dora grounded. (Alaska State Library photo collection)

Life

Resilience of the Dora, part 3

Her long career had come to an end at last.

This John E. Thwaites photo shows the S.S. Dora near Sand Point, Alaska. Thwaites sailed as mail clerk on the Dora between at least 1905 and 1912. (Alaska State Library photo collection)

Life

Resilience of the Dora, part 2

The S.S. Dora touched lives on and became part of the history of the Kenai Peninsula and Southcentral…