Site Logo
This photo of Warren Melville Nutter, holding a dead juvenile bald eagle that he shot for the bounty, appeared in the May 1938 edition of The Alaska Sportsman Magazine. The photo was probably taken near the mouth of Hidden Creek on Skilak Lake.

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 4

Nutter had two trap-line cabins

This is a display of some of the hunting items that Warren Melville Nutter carried when he moved to Alaska in the summer of 1930. (Photo courtesy of the Nutter Family Collection)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 3

For the first 40 years of his life, most of Nutter’s experiences fit neatly into two categories: “Education”…

Gilbert Witt, pictured here in about 1930, was the troubled first husband of Muriel Grunert, who later married Warren Melville Nutter. (Public photo from ancestry.com)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 2

Warren Melville Nutter — known by many residents of the Kenai Peninsula as “William” or “Bill” — came…

In the Hope Cemetery, the grave marker for Warren Melville Nutter contains errors in his birth year and his age. The illustration, however, captures his adventurous spirit. (Photo courtesy of findagrave.com)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 1

It turned out that there were at least four other Nutters on the Kenai in the first half…

During the brief time (1933-34) that Bob Huttle (right) spent on Tustumena Lake, he documented a tremendous number of structures and described many of the people he met there. One of the men he traveled with frequently was John “Frenchy” Cannon (left), seen here at the Upper Bear Creek Cabin. (Photo courtesy of the Robert Huttle Collection)

Life

Cosmopolitan Tustumena — Part 2

Many individuals came to and departed from the Tustumena scene

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.