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Ole Frostad, pictured here in the 1930s, and his brother Erling lived seasonally and trapped at Tustumena Lake. They also fished commercially in the summers out of Kenai. (Photo courtesy of the Gary Titus Collection)

Life

Cosmopolitan Tustumena — Part 1

Few people these days would associate the word “cosmopolitan” with Tustumena Lake

A lone hooligan fisherman heads upstream on the lower Kenai River to try his luck from Cunningham Memorial Park. (Clark Fair photo)

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 6

And thus, except for fading headlines, the Franke name all but disappeared from the annals of Kenai Peninsula…

Pictured in an online public portrait is Anthony J. Dimond, the Anchorage judge who presided over the sentencing hearing of William Franke, who pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Ethen Cunningham in January 1948.

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 5

A hearing was held to determine the length of William Franke’s prison sentence

This excerpt from a survey dating back more than a century shows a large meander at about Mile 6 of the Kenai River. Along the outside of this river bend in 1948 were the homestead properties of Ethen Cunningham, William Franke and Charles “Windy” Wagner.

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 4

Franke surrendered peacefully and confessed to the killing, but the motive for the crime remained in doubt.

Charles “Windy” Wagner, pictured here in about the year in which Ethen Cunningham was murdered, was a neighbor to both the victim and the accused, William Franke. (Photo courtesy of the Knackstedt Collection)

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 3

The suspect was homesteader William Henry Franke

William Henry Franke signed this draft-registration card in August 1942 in Massachusetts. At the time, he was serving with the U.S. Merchant Marine. Four years later, he would move to the Kenai Peninsula. In January 1948, he would kill Ethen Cunningham.

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 2

Conjecture about motive was rampant immediately after the shooting and in the months before Franke’s court date

Former Kenai resident and businessman Hal Thornton first arrived in Kenai on the evening that Ethen Cunningham was murdered. He described his experience with this event in the Kenai chapter of this memoir.

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 1

It may have seemed like an open-and-shut case

On its last legs. When the Peninsula Clarion’s Ashlyn O’Hara captured this image of Good Time Charlies in 2022, the old bar and strip club was about to be demolished to make room for a highway-safety project.

Life

A violent season — Part 7

No bar stands today north of the Sterling Highway and across from the Birch Ridge Golf Course.

Harvey Dale Hardaway, seen here in his military uniform, was one of four men involved in a shoot-out at the Hilltop Bar and Café in December 1967. (Public photo from ancestry.com)

Life

A violent season — Part 6

A disagreement over the payment for some food led to a shoot-out at the Hilltop Bar and Café

This advertisement for the Hilltop Bar and Café, the successor to the Circus Bar, appeared in 1962. The names under “Beer and Booze” refer to co-owners Swede Foss and Steve Henry King. (Advertisement contributed by Jim Taylor)

Life

A violent season — Part 5

Bush did not deny killing Jack Griffiths in October 1961, but he claimed to have had no choice…

James Franklin Bush was arrested and jailed for vagrancy and contributing to the delinquency of minors in California in 1960, about a year before the murder in Soldotna of Jack Griffiths. (Public document from ancestry.com)

Life

A violent season — Part 4

James Franklin “Jim” Bush stood accused of the Soldotna murder of Jack Griffiths in October 1961

[csC1—]Jack and Alice Griffiths, owners of the Circus Bar, pose together in about 1960. (Public photo from familysearch.org)

Life

A violent season — Part 3

The second spirit, said Cunningham, belonged to Jack Griffiths….

Ruth Ann and Oscar Pederson share smiles with young Vicky, a foster daughter they were trying to adopt in 1954. This front-page photograph appeared in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on June 17, 1954.

Life

A violent season — Part 2

Triumph, tragedy and mystery

This 1961 drawing of the Circus Bar, east of Soldotna, was created by Connie Silver for a travel guide called Alaska Highway Sketches. The bar was located across the Sterling Highway from land that was later developed into the Birch Ridge Golf Course.

Life

A violent season — Part 1

Like many such drinking establishments, Good Time Charlies usually opened late and stayed open late

Calvin Fair, in his element, on Buck Mountain, above Chief Cove on Kodiak Island, in October 1986. His hunting partner and longtime friend Will Troyer captured this image while they were on one of the duo’s annual deer-hunting trips. (Photo courtesy of the Fair Family Collection)

Life

The Road Not Taken: A tribute to my father’s career choice

For the first 40 years of my life, I saw my father professionally as a dentist. Period.

Little Family photo courtesy of the Soldotna Historical Society Ira Little poses in the doorway of the cabin he recently completed with the help of his buddy, Marvin Smith, in the winter of 1947-48. The cabin stood on a high bank above the Kenai River in the area that would soon be known as Soldotna.

Life

Bound and Determined: The Smith & Little Story — Part 2

On Dec. 19, 1947, Smith and Little had filed on adjoining homesteads

Ira Little poses outside of his recently completed Soldotna homestead cabin in 1947. (Little Family photo courtesy of the Soldotna Historical Society)

Life

Bound and Determined: The Smith & Little Story — Part 1

The lives of Ira Little and Marvin Smith were inextricably linked

This Al Hershberger photo of his good friend Hedley Parsons was taken in Germany in 1945, after World War II had ended. Parsons and Hershberger came to Alaska together a few years later, and in 2010, when Parsons was interviewed for this story, he may have been the last person living who had actually attended George Dudley’s messy funeral

Life

This parting was not sweet sorrow — Part 2

The funeral was scheduled for 2 p.m. on May 5, and spring break-up was in full, sloppy bloom…

Former North Kenai resident George Coe Dudley, seen here during the winter of 1950-51, was a hard-drinking man. His messy funeral in 1967 in Kenai echoed his lifestyle. (Photo courtesy of Al Hershberger)

Life

This parting was not sweet sorrow — Part 1

“Dudley was an easy-going, laid-back sort of guy, always laughing and joking, as well as hard drinking.”

Happy Valley homesteader Wayne Jones looks through the telescope built by Rex Hanks, circa 1950. (Photo from “The Pioneers of Happy Valley, 1944-1964,” by Ella Mae McGann)

Life

A Kind and Sensitive Man: The Rex Hanks Story — Part 4

Rex Hanks had a reputation as a forthright, hard-working, inventive and sensitive man